Minister ‘ misled’ MPS over roll- out of benefits

Esther McVey has been forced to issue an embarrassing apology to MPs after a public row with White hall’ s spending watchdog.

The Work and Pensions Secretary said that she had “inadvertently misled” the House of Commons by claiming that the National Audit Office (NA O) had called for the roll-out of the Universal Credit benefit to be accelerated.

But she defended her claim that a highly-critical NAO report had failed to take into account recent changes made to the flagship benefit.

In a highly unusual step, the head of the NAO pub - licly rebuked the Cabinet minister over her response to its report.

In an open letter to Ms McVey, Auditor Gener al Sir Amy as Morse said elements of her statement to parliament on the report were incorrect and unproven.