THE Tories narrowly avoided a second defeat in as many days in the Lords last night over partisan voter registration reforms that disenfranchise 1.9 million people.

Lib Dem and Labour lords launched a rebellion against government attempts to move the introduction of individual electoral registration (IER) forward by a year.

But in another knife-edge vote their motion was defeated by 11, with 246 voting for the motion against the government compared with 257 in support of the changes.