The Bishop of Leeds has called for a cross-party solution as Westminster continues to fight over the terms of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.

In the House of Lords on Monday, Bishop Nick Baines said it was time for Prime Minister Theresa May and the Government to 'stop playing a zero-sum game' on Brexit.

'My Lords, the Prime Minister says in her statement [on exiting the EU] that those who continue to disagree need to shoulder the responsibility of advocating an alternative solution that can be delivered,' he said.

'Surely that is everybody's responsibility. She goes on to ask people to be honest about the implications of what they want. However, it seems to me that people have been honest for the last couple of years but they have not been listened to.'

The bishop said that cross-party engagement could help the nation's leaders 'find a credible way ahead'.

In last week's Lords debate on Brexit, the bishop had called for a withdrawal agreement that presents a bigger vision for the nation than 'just trade relationships'.

He warned that the legacy of Brexit was starting to look like 'a corruption of public discourse, polarisation between people and communities, and a too frequent reduction of the polity to the merely economic'.

He also said it was 'fantasy' to think that a better deal could have been negotiated, although he stopped short of giving it his outright support.

'That does not address the question of whether this compromise is acceptable but the options were never vast, even if some of the fantasies about Brexit were ridiculous,' he said.

'It was clear from the beginning that some circles were never capable of being squared, and the Government should have been honest about that from the word go.'

May was forced to delay the vote on her deal in the face of a likely defeat.