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Forget the arguments about the nature and structure of parliamentary institutions in a democratic polity, forget the manifesto promises and a century of constitutional debate. When a chap can't get a table for dinner in the Peers' Dining Room, and when Noble Lords have to order their G&Ts in the Pugin Room to avoid the crush, there's a problem.

With a membership now in excess of 800, and more and more new peers arriving every week, the Upper House's normal collegiality is being strained by sheer population pressure.

The comment by "Ex Engineer" that the Lords should come up with a retirement mechanism for their more emeritus members is spot on - but difficult to deliver, since the writ of summons by which peers are appointed confers life membership, posing a knotty legal problem.

So most solutions revolve around some kind of voluntary recusal - and some include the prospect of continued access to the catering facilities and the Library.

Most schemes for moving to an elected house envisage phasing in the elected element, rather than expelling the current membership en masse - with reformers preferring to rely on what they tactfully refer to as "natural wastage" rather than provoke last ditch resistance to their schemes.

But the prospect of reduced crowding may generate more enthusiasm for change on the red benches than the constitutional case for reform ever will.

Ideally they would like to be back in Westminster in the middle of next week - when they could also take the opportunity to get an update on the latest events in Libya.

That, backers of the recall argue, is exactly what the classic parliamentary role of "holding government to account" should mean. Although at the moment I suspect they're unlikely to get their way.

But there is a genuine sense that it looks very bad for MPs to head off on their Easter hols when British forces are involved in military action and financial crisis is stalking Europe.

A three week Easter break, followed by a short week around the royal wedding, followed by a fortnight off for Whitsun, from May 24, rather than the usual week, does not exactly suggest we're all in it together.

It's argued that Parliament will sit for as many days as it did last year - but I seem to remember that the General Election took a bit of a bite out of the 2010 sitting schedule, so I'm not too impressed with that.

Perhaps what we're seeing is "compensation" for the extra two weeks the Commons is due to sit in September, in the shape of longer breaks earlier in the year. To be sure some MPs will be diligently at work in their constituencies, and campaigning in the various elections now under way - but I fear some will not. And weren't we promised that this Government would not sideline Parliament?

They'll be taking their first evidence, on April 27, from Lord Lester, the Lib Dem Peer who has campaigned endlessly against the "chilling effect" of the current laws. He could probably dictate serviceable bill to them off the top of his head.

The committee will trawl through such issues as a "public interest test" to justify the publication of potentially libellous information, how to make the defence of "fair comment" more workable as well as the much publicised problem of "libel tourism" - of foreigners suing in this country when they would not be able to sue in their own.

And they will also look at the ramifications for parliamentary privilege: Is there a case for reforming the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 in the light of recent coverage of super-injunctions.

Parliamentary privilege is the legal protection which allows the press to report what happens in parliament. Or should that issue be left to the forthcoming Parliamentary Privilege Bill?

The members of the Committee are: Lord Bew, Crossbench; Lord Grade of Yarmouth, Conservative; Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, Labour; Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, Liberal Democrat, Lord Mawhinney, Conservative, Lord Morris of Aberavon, Labour; Sir Peter Bottomley, Conservative; Rehman Chishti, Conservative; Christopher Evans, Labour; Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat; David Lammy, Labour and Stephen Phillips, Conservative.

Cue much chuntering about how unreasonable it is to ask people to consider several different issues at the same time.

I suspect we'll just have to get used to it. One of the outcomes of the Coalition's blizzard of constitutional changes will be more elections - for members of the Upper House, for Police Commissioners, and for more big city mayors. And it's hard to imagine that all of these different elections can be kept separate.

Considerable contortions are already being suggested to avoid the General Election scheduled for 2015 clashing with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland elections (and there were loud enough complaints when a mere referendum was scheduled alongside this year's).

But if all goes according to Nick Clegg's plans we could be electing our first tranche of senators (or whatever they will be called) on polling day 2015, and quite possibly several mayors and police commissioners as well. And that's before we get onto the provisions in the Localism Bill to allow direct consultation of the electorate on major policy issues and council tax increases in referendums. There could be a few of those as well.

The alternative is to have a second big polling day a year, perhaps in October, where lesser elections can be shuffled away from a General Election - which would be expensive and would almost certainly lead to a lower turnout.

So maybe the Government will bite the bullet and offer voters American style balloting in which they choose everyone from the municipal dog-catcher to the President, in one fell swoop.

Yes, the next exciting episode in the Coalition's sweeping programme of constitutional change is about to begin. A white paper towards the end of May, followed by pre-legislative scrutiny by a high powered committee of MPs and Peers, reporting by the New Year, followed by a Bill in the Queen's Speech (ie May) for the 2012-13 session, followed by the use of the Parliament Act to tank it through into law, if Their Lordships refuse to pass it, or insist on amendments the Coalition can't accept.

This is where the composition of the special committee to scrutinise the Bill comes in. The thinking seems to be a 22-member committee, half MPs, half Peers. I'd guess it would be chaired by a peer, so that person could sell the proposals to the Upper House.

And I suspect there would be some litmus test of reforming enthusiasm for membership - the objective of the committee would not be to re-fight a century of debate on Lords reform, but to knock the Bill into shape, so the Coalition would want members committed to moving the process forward.

There would be plenty of issues for them to ponder - not least the issue of unelected members. At the moment the leaked account of the Bill suggest 20 per cent of the membership would be appointed rather than elected and that a handful of Church of England Bishops would be retained - but the White Paper alongside the Draft Bill would contain options for an all-elected House.

Then there's the electoral system for choosing peers. The current favourite seems to be a regional list system, but the White Paper would contain other options that the Committee might prefer. Again the ultimate objective would be to put a proposal backed by a strong before Parliament.

Since Lords Reform was in the Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour manifestos, there should, theoretically, be an overwhelming consensus behind the Bill. But somehow, I doubt that's quite how it will work out.

By 2013, when the Bill will be before the Lords, Peers will be accustomed to monstoring Coalition Bills, having by then sharpened their teeth on the Health and Social Care Bill, the Police and Social Responsibility Bill and of course the earlier "Clegg Bills" on the AV referendum and fixed term parliaments.

So they may be much more inclined to savage this one, out of sheer habit. And at that point one has to wonder whether the Coalition will still have the political energy to force the Bill through - with all the consequences the use of the Parliament Act (the mechanism for over-riding opposition in the Lords) might have for the rest of their agenda. If Their Lordships turn nasty, Parliament could grind to a halt.

But since the trench warfare over the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill, iron has entered the Coalition's soul. Their high command has, I'm told, little compunction about doing whatever it takes to get a key part of their programme through. However much ermine gets ruffled in the process.

Monday in the Commons opens with Eric Pickles and Communities and Local Government ministerial team on their feet, answering questions from MPs. After that, it's an Opposition Day with Labour staging debates on police cuts and the government's green policy.

In the Lords, the Public Bodies Bill will be up for consideration - it's day three of report stage and their lordships - many quangocrats themselves - are still nibbling away at the Bill's provisions. That comes after questions, of course, with some interesting ones from Lord Dykes, on the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by Rupert Murdoch's News International and Lord Dubs on the reorganisation of primary care trusts. I'm just speculating here, but I somehow doubt strong approval will feature in either of their lordships' questions.

Grant Shapps will be hot-footing it from questions in the Commons to the Communities and Local Government Committee on Monday afternoon, where he'll be talking to MPs there about the audit and inspection of local authorities. This tekky-sounding subject is, in fact, highly controversial - because the present financial watchdog for local government, the Audit Commission is due to be abolished. Is that decision the product of post-election euphoria by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles or has he thought it through properly?

Elsewhere on committee corridor, there is a Joint Committee session on the detention of terrorist suspects with (count 'em) three former home secretaries: Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Charles Clarke - and former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.

The committee will want to hear their views on contingency plans that would allow terrorism suspects to be held for more than 14 days, ask whether the current proposals unnecessarily risk a suspect's right to a fair trial - and discover whether they think the proposals blur the line between Parliament and the courts.

And the Scottish and Welsh Committees are taking wing: the Scottish Affairs Committee is in Aberdeen to take evidence on the potential impact of government changes to immigration rules on universities in Scotland. The National Union of Students, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and Universities Scotland give evidence. Meanwhile, the Welsh Affairs Committee will hold an evidence session at Swansea University for its inquiry into Inward Investment in Wales. The committee will hear from academics and industry experts on how Wales can improve its chances of attracting investment.

On Tuesday, Nick Clegg faces questions from MPs, followed by a debate on Britain's contribution to humanitarian relief in Libya and then backbench business - the traditional end-of-term debate in which MPs can raise any subject they fancy. This rather amorphous event has been much improved by the Backbench Business Committee, which has grouped the speeches into themes, so that they can get a better answer from a suitable minister.

Meanwhile, the Lords continue to plough through legislation with the Building Regulations (Review) Bill and the EU Bill. Committee-wise, there's a Business Committee meeting on the future of higher education and a Culture, Media and Sport Committee interrogation of the chairman and chief executive of the Premier League, Dave Richards and Richard Scudamore on football governance. Meanwhile, the Home Affairs Committee will be looking at the UK Border Agency and the hacking of mobile phones.

The Commons is in recess on Wednesday; their Lordships forge on. Telephone hacking crops up again in questions in the Lords (Lord Fowler is raising the subject), then the house will consider the Postal Services Bill.

Then it's the Easter recess - and Parliamentarians disappear until 26 April, for three days before the Royal wedding. That's always supposing they are not recalled in the event of stirrings of war in North Africa and the Middle East. You have been warned...

There's also an extensive crop of select committee reports - so here are some highlights: on Saturday, the Treasury Committee releases its report on Competition and Choice in Retail Banking. Is the consumer getting a good enough deal following the consolidation in the banking industry created by the financial crisis? On Monday, the Lords EU Committee reports on the EU Single Market. It is expected to recommend ongoing monitoring, to highlight the economic benefits, and to flag the UK's role in helping to complete it.

Perhaps the most important report of the week emanates from Stephen Dorrell's Health Committee. Their verdict on NHS Commissioning is likely to be very important to the prospect of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's proposed changes to the system in the Health and Social Care Bill - and may even offer the committee's shopping list of changes to the bill if the planned switch to GP-led commissioning is to help the NHS deliver the improvements to services needed to meet the rising number of elderly people. I hear whispers that there have been ructions over the drafting of this report, so watch this space, and beware of "forms of words" within, which may paper over the cracks in the committee.

The first report containing comment on arms exports to North Africa is published on Tuesday from the Combined Committees on Arms Exports - chaired by Sir John Stanley.

Mr Bone then objected to the government resolution which would have provided four extra days and put down an amendment - and then failed to extract any further concessions from Sir George. I gather the normally affable Leader e-mailed all Conservative MPs, blaming Mr Bone for the need to keep them in the Commons late into Monday evening, so that Mr Bone's amendment could be voted down. And the row over that delayed David Cameron's triumphant appearance alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger at the 1922 Committee meeting. The PM and the Terminator were, I gather, kept waiting outside, while the two protagonists slugged it out. And Mr Bone, recognising, perhaps, that he was on a hiding to nothing, has now pulled his amendment, and the House has approved plans for just four extra private members' days.

A storm in a teacup perhaps, but not quite the hands off, "let the Commons be the Commons" approach the Coalition once promised. I'm not sure that preventing a handful of procedurally adept backbenchers from putting down large numbers of no-hope bills, in a kind of Thatcherite performance art, constitutes a death blow to our democracy, but surely part of the point of an independent Commons is to irritate and challenge ministers.

And as for those backbenchers who complain that Messrs Bone, Chope, Hollobone etc have hogged all the slots for extra private members' bills, they should work harder at learning and exploiting the rules of the Commons.

But it has yet to come into effect because ministers have been consulting on the "guidance" over what constitutes corruption and what constitutes acceptable conduct.

Now the guidance has appeared - to cheers from the CBI who are relieved that British business will not be swamped by an onerous compliance regime, and that corporate hospitality will not be criminalised. Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary says that in implementing the Act "the UK government and British business [are] striking a blow for the rule of law and the operation of free markets". So the Act will now come into force on 1 July.

But there are fewer hosannas from the watchdog group Transparency International - who accuse the government of using the guidelines to overturn the intention of the legislation.

Part of the moral of this tale is that passing a law is quite often only the beginning of the legislative process - codes of conduct, official guidelines and regulations flesh out the skeletons provided by the laws passed by Parliament, but they seldom get anything like the same attention.

The trouble is that the devil is often in the detail and Transparency International UK's Executive Director Chandrashekhar Krishnan argues that the guidelines provide a series of loopholes which allow companies to get away with practices like bribing officials of foreign governments, which are supposed to be outlawed by the Act.

On the other side of the argument, there is considerable relief that the government is not going to impose burdensome regulations - but will provide a system that complies with the demands of major trading partners like the US and Germany which take an increasingly dim view of companies which engage in bribery.

The guidelines are not law, not even the kind of secondary legislation which passes through Parliament every day, so they don't have to be debated. I suspect they will attract plenty of comment in both houses of Parliament - but even the critics want the Act to come into force and won't want to provide any pretext for further delay.

Monday and Tuesday in the Commons sees the continuation of the Budget debate: on Monday MPs will be concentrating on regulation and economic reform, while on Tuesday the topic will be work incentives and employment. Not room for much else - but John McDonnell's adjournment debate on the future of rail engineering jobs could be interesting on Tuesday.

While this is going on, the Lords will be looking at the Public Bodies Bill at report stage on Monday - and on Tuesday, the Building Regulations (Review) Bill and the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill - another big constitutional reform proposal which may run into trouble.

If the budget doesn't tempt MPs into the chamber, there are always committees. But there's no escaping the budget on committee corridor: the Treasury has sessions on Monday and Tuesday examining the implications of George Osborne's decisions. On Tuesday, they'll be interrogating Mr Osborne himself.

There are also sessions with university representatives including the Russell Group (the British Ivy League) as the Business Committee continues its inquiry into higher education and the Home Affairs Committee will step where the Culture Committee did this week by talking to Acting Deputy Commissioner John Yates about phone hacking. Only the Home Affairs Committee will also have alleged hacking victim and Labour MP Chris Bryant before them, too. Since Yates of the Yard dismissed Mr Bryant's attacks on his investigation at the Culture Committee hearing, sparks could fly (in an orderly manner, of course).

Budget discussions will be over by Wednesday and MPs can turn their attentions to PMQs and the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. In the Lords, they are back on the Pensions Bill and there are plenty of committees to chew over.

Science and Technology will be looking at the Forensic Science Service, which is facing closure and replacement by a private company; the Culture Committee will be talking to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt; the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee will interrogate NI Secretary Owen Patterson and the Environment Committee will be talking to Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman about the spending review. It was that review that propelled Ms Spelman onto the front pages with her suggestions about the UK's forests - plans that were then chainsawed to the ground and pulped by public opposition and an adroit Labour campaign. Could be interesting to see if she repeats her rather dignified Commons performance after that debacle in front of the committee.

By Thursday, MPs will be back on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, after the Business Statement and questions to the Business team. The Lords' Thursday debates will be on supporting economic growth and the standards of care and commissioning of services in the NHS from Lord Turnberg.

There's also some sporadic action on the committee corridor, where the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee explores Parliament's role in decisions to go to war - should a requirement for a vote in the Commons on conflict decisions be enshrined in law?

Legal experts give their views. And Business Secretary Vince Cable will appear before the BIS Committee to answer members' questions on the Budget. The committee will focus on whether the measures announced by the Chancellor amount to a co-ordinated growth strategy.

The Lords provide the big event on Friday, when they debate Libya. An impressive list of peers are already signed up to speak - including such luminaries as Lord Hannay, the former ambassador to the UN, and former Chiefs of the Defence Staff Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Stirrup.

The Commons is also sitting to debate private members' bills from Mark Lancaster and Christopher Chope. Mr Chope's is Broadcasting (Public Service Content) Bill - which I'm assured is not an April Fool's Day jape.

Next week also sees a goodly harvest of select committee reports - watch out for: the Culture Media and Sport Committee offering on Funding of the Arts and Heritage on Monday; the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee verdict on the constitutional implications of the Cabinet manual - the new volume of governing guidelines penned by the Cabinet Secretary, on Tuesday; the Justice Select Committee on the government's proposed reform of the legal aid budget, on Wednesday; and the Treasury Committee report on Competition and Choice in the Banking Sector. This is the inquiry for which Barclays' unrepentant Bob Diamond and other banking bosses appeared, and some interesting reading can be anticipated.

This could be the row the hard core of Eurosceptics on the Conservative benches have been preparing for. Not an arcane constitutional dispute centred on the small print of a treaty or the meaning of some ancient parliamentary precedent, but an issue centred on hard cash at a time of dire economic hardship.

It could rouse the same new wave Tory backbenchers who roll their eyes when crabbed euro-rebels of vast seniority sink their teeth into the likes of the European Union Bill. Explaining to constituents why their public services are being cut, while perhaps £3.5bn of British taxpayers' money is being spent to help foreigners is not something they want to do - so a sharp rebellion may be on the cards.

If the occasion for rebellion arises. I hear whispers of attempts to secure a debate on a substantive motion from the Backbench Business Committee - but the vagaries of the Commons timetable means that there is no time to offer until May. For some reason Westminster is on holiday for most of April and then off again for a two week Whitsun recess in late May. So that approach may be a dead end.

In any event, this country may be unable to resile from a commitment to chip in to future euro-bailouts. But the catch is when that commitment was made. It was Alistair Darling, Labour's Chancellor, who signed Britain up to the European Stability Facility, at a meeting after the general election, but before the Coalition had emerged as the next government. But as an outgoing minister acting at a moment of constitutional limbo between governments, he would surely have needed the agreement of his probable successor, George Osborne, to go ahead. Civil servants could not, properly, have committed an incoming government to something so significant, on the instructions of a defeated administration.

So the question then arises: are Mr Osborne's dabs on the bailout bill? We may not be able to wriggle out of the commitment, but did he agree to it at the time, and did he decide to stick with it on taking office, when he might have had an opportunity to repudiate it? And what advice was he given by Treasury civil servants? If freedom of information requests put down by anti-EU backbencher Douglas Carswell produce evidence that the Chancellor either acquiesced to joining the bailout mechanism, or didn't dare disturb it, for fear of upsetting his new Lib Dem partners in government, his rising political stock could plunge very fast.

But he and his colleagues had put down a whole list of bills to be debated on particular days - even when they were expected to be non-sitting days, something you're allowed to do under Commons rules. Now their speculation has paid off and they have pole position for a series of debates on hyper-Thatcherite causes and will be able discuss them at length.

They even suspect the government may have chosen the days they named in their motion - 9 September, 21 October, 25 November and 20 January 2012, on the basis that those were the days when the bills they found least embarrassing were scheduled.

He wants to scrap the present Primary Health Care Trusts (PCTs) and put consortiums (consortia?) of GPs in charge of commissioning health services for patients in their area. The idea is that "clinical leadership" not central targets will drive local spending priorities in health. And the uber-wonkish health secretary, lauded by David Cameron as the man who really understands the NHS, has devised a new system which he believes puts power at the grassroots.

But when he appeared before the Health Committee to talk about his plans, he did so under a palpable cloud of doubt and fear. Many other MPs - and not just on the opposition benches - question whether his system will work, and whether, if it does, the public service ethos of the NHS - its soul if you like - would survive. The Health Committee, under one of Mr Lansley's predecessors, Stephen Dorrell, has been taking a long and (sometimes excruciatingly) detailed look at the NHS commissioning process.

The MPs gave Mr Lansley a long and sometimes tetchy going-over. And he noticeably declined to give Lib Dem Andrew George any promise that he would amend his bill to take note of Lib Dem concerns - expressed at their spring conference - about the "marketisation" of the NHS and the handing to GPs of control of billions of public money without sufficient democratic oversight.

One interesting question is whether that decision is any longer his to make. A reform that pitched the NHS into chaos would be political poison to the Coalition - and it's worth remembering that the Lib Dems say the Lansley proposals are no part of the Coalition Agreement - so they're not bound to support them. Which means that a bill which does not win their approval could have a tough time in the Commons and could be filleted in the Lords, where lurks Lady Williams (the artist formerly known as Shirley Williams) and a squadron of unhappy Lib Dem peers, who could yet amend the bill, and send it back to the Commons.

I must admit I felt a bit out of my depth listening to the debate on the arcana of NHS management. This is not a subject I know much about. But there did seem to me to be a bit of a comprehension gap - Mr Lansley wants a system so different, and so bottom up, that those marinated in the current system cannot imagine how it can function. I'm in no position to judge who's right - but the scale of the concern by the BMA and others is clearly causing serious concern in the Coalition high command.

The Health Committee may yet have a role. Some of its members are rumoured to be considering putting down amendments as a committee - the hot new fashion on the committee corridor. And their judgement on the plans could itself be vital in swinging opinion on the bill one way or the other. But, as happened a couple of times in the Blair years, we have a bill before Parliament which could be substantially re-written on the floor of the House.

One final thought. One of the main critics of the bill in the Health Committee is the Conservative Sarah Wollaston - the Totnes GP who was selected as a Conservative candidate by an "open primary" process in which all her local voters were invited to take part in a postal ballot. Her criticism of the bill has been notably independent and pretty fearless. Which may explain why the government seems to have lost its earlier enthusiasm for Primaries as a device to "reconnect" voters with Parliament. But she's doing just what the voters probably hope their MPs should do - and which they in fact to all too seldom.

A number of MPs have been arguing that only having the normal quota of private members' bill days in an extra-long parliamentary year (from last May to May 2012) effectively reduces backbenchers' opportunities to introduce bills. The Leader of the House, Sir George Young, has heard the arguments and responded - so the proposed extra dates are 9 September, 21 October, 25 November and 20 January 2012. Bills will have precedence on those days in accordance with standing orders.

I'm not quite sure what that will mean in practice. Normally eight days are devoted to second readings, the initial debates on bills, and another eight to "remaining stages", the report stage and third reading - and if the bills get through those, they're sent off to the Lords. If this announcement means more second readings, it's rather good news for Chris Chope and his backbench allies, (see previous posts) who have put down a whole phalanx of bills on the off-chance. Some of those will now be debated - and maybe even passed. Which would at least make those Commons Fridays rather more entertaining.

The government is also mindful that, due to that longer-than-usual current session, extra Opposition days and backbench business days will be needed. Sir George will announce extra time through the weekly business statement as usual.

(MPs will still debate the resolution on their salary at 10pm - but I doubt much time will now be spent on that, and there were calls for the Leader of the House Sir George Young to allow an unlimited debate on Libya, so everyone who wanted to speak would get the chance.)

The Government also plans to publish a summary of its legal advice on the UN resolution and the legality of use of force. One interesting piece of choreography in David Cameron's statement today (Friday) was that the Government's top legal advisor, the Attorney-General, Dominic Grieve, was prominently placed one seat down from the PM - a visible attempt to reassure MPs that the legality of the war was fully established, so dispelling some memories of the Iraq debate, exactly eight years ago.

The change to Monday means the debate on the Budget Responsibility Bill is pushed back to Tuesday - and the remaining stages of the Scotland Bill have been kicked into the long heather. I imagine that will resurface the following week. (Incidentally, I'm told the report by the Scottish Select Committee on the Bill will be published at 10am on Monday.) The Budget remains on Wednesday and the scheduling for the rest of the week is unchanged.