LORD Tony Greaves has quit the Liberal Democrats' front bench in the House of Lords in a row over the future of Lancashire County Council.

The Pendle peer accused his party's MPs of letting down the people of the North West after they backed moves to axe a tier of local government in favour of a North West Regional Assembly.

The former Lancashire County Councillor is enraged at a deal done by the Lib Dems and the government over the future if a regional assembly is created for the North West.

Labour is determined to have a single tier of councils across the North West if the new elected assembly is created.

It originally wanted to scrap the county and create unitary authorities along the lines of Blackburn with Darwen.

Now it has accepted a Lib Dem amendment where the referendum on a regional assembly will come with two questions -- do you want the new assembly and if so which form of unitary local government (district or county council) would you prefer?

Lord Greaves found this too much to stomach as he believes the county and Pendle, Hyndburn, Burnley, Ribble Valley, Rossendale and other district councils should remain even if the regional assembly is created.

As a result he has decided to quit the front bench to oppose his party's policy.

He said: "I believe my party has regrettably now agreed to be blackmailed, bullied and brow-beaten.

"I believe that in my part of the world, and in other parts of the world, too, Liberal Democrats will believe they have been let down on this issue by their MPs.

"I live and am politically active in a two-tier area, so perhaps I look at life from a perspective different from that of those from London and Metropolitan areas.

"The crunch is whether people in areas that are to have referendums on regional assemblies, as proposed by the government, have the democratic option to decide for themselves and not be told by the minister, 10 Downing Street or anyone else that two-tier local government is not allowed."

Mr Greaves said he believed abandoning the two-tier county and district system would split the vote in any referendum and set back the case for regional government in the North West for a long time.

Former Ribble Valley Tory MP, Lord Waddington also said he did not want to see Lancashire County abandoned.