A Treasury minister has made the strongest hint yet that George Osborne will be forced into a tax credits U-turn.

Tory Matthew Hancock said his boss is 'very much in listening mode' as his party faces a humiliating House of Lords defeat.

Labour and Lib Dem peers are uniting to halt the Tory cuts despite ministers warning their actions will cause a constitutional crisis .

Because the House of Lords is unelected, it is supposed to tweak laws instead of making them and the intervention has been slammed.

But Lib Dem leader Tim Farron today said his party was doing the right thing to protect millions of poor families.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We think it is right to use the mechanisms available to us to overturn this proposal which is unfair, which will damage so many families and which they have no mandate for."

Hint: Tory Matthew Hancock said George Osborne is in 'listening mode'

Mr Hancock - who admitted 20% of people, around 8 million working age adults, will be worse off - repeated claims yesterday by Cabinet colleague Nicky Morgan that the Chancellor was 'listening'.

His intervention is significant because of his position as Paymaster General looking after the nation's purse strings.

And it comes as a parade of senior Tories line up to warn of the danger in the tax credit cuts.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson warned they will cause 'suffering' while London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith is among those leading another motion against the cuts on Thursday.

Mr Hancock told Sky News: "We will listen to what the Lords have to say. There is a motion down which will allow Lords to express their regret, which we will listen to.

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"[That will] still allow it to pass and so not lead to this unprecedented constitutional position of the Lords stopping a financial measure that the Budget and the country relies on."

Labour shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith hit back: "We will not be falling into the trap of allowing the Tories to present this as some sort of unjust, unfair use of the House of Lords.

"And in the House of Commons, where these things are properly decided, we will be voting against it tomorrow."

The House of Lords will consider four separate motions to halt the tax credit cuts in the debate, which starts at around 3pm.

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Labour's bid will call on the government to delay the cuts for at least three years.

A Lib Dem bid will try to kill the entire measure stone dead.

A crossbench bid will ask for ministers to delay the cuts until they have looked more at how the poorest can be protected

And a motion by the Bishop of Portsmouth will express 'regret' over the effect on poor families while asking their protection to be looked at.

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Should unelected Lords kill off tax credit cuts?