Gordon Brown will today throw his weight behind proposals to lower the voting age to 16 as part of efforts to reinvigorate politics and enthuse the electorate.

The chancellor says in an interview with The Guardian that Labour must be prepared to reopen the debate for electoral reform of the House of Commons.

He also believes that the executive should give up power and backs further and more far reaching changes to the House of Lords.

His comments chime with the publication of a report by the Power Commission, which says Lords reform should be completed rapidly and be based on the direct election of 70 per cent of its members.

The commission, set up by the Rowntree Foundation to address voter disillusion and low turnout at elections, also proposes lowering the voting age and a £10,000 cap on individual donations to political parties.

It suggests voters should be able to allocate £3 of public money on polling day to the party of their choice.

The chancellor, who is due to speak at the launch of the report, said: "We must address whatever holds Britain back, low turnouts, youth disengagement, falling party membership and long term decline in trust, problems that owe more to out political system than out civic culture."

The commission calls for action to prevent what it calls a democratic meltdown. Its report says people should have the right to initiate public inquiries and that rules on media ownership should be tightened.

Yesterday, Lord Falconer, lord chancellor, said he would try and forge a cross-party consensus on the next stage of Lords reform.

The peer, a close ally of Tony Blair, said in a BBC interview that further reform of parliament's upper chamber, while not top of the public's agenda, was "an important thing and it's a thing to try to achieve."

However, his remarks threatened to lead to cabinet tension over the issue, with some senior Labour figures surprised that he had not consulted widely.

They were said by Whitehall insiders to have prompted concern among some senior colleagues over the level of his commitment to deliver in full the party's manifesto pledge.