Theresa May has robustly defended her actions in the row surrounding the UK Border Agency, as Labour pressed the home secretary to disclose all the papers relating to a pilot scheme at the centre of the controversy.
Over the summer Ms May authorised the relaxation of passport checks for some European passengers entering the UK, but she claims UKBA officials went further than the terms agreed by the Home Office, leading to an unknown number of illegal immigrants entering Britain.
Labour called on the home secretary to "tell the truth" about the fiasco, with Theresa May's account directly at odds with an official who has been blamed for the lax passport checks and who quit last night.
Earlier the Prime Minister had given Ms May his full backing at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons, after the former head of the UK Border Force, Brodie Clark, resigned on Tuesday night having been suspended earlier this week. Clark is expected to sue for constructive dismissal and issued an explosive statement attacking Theresa May.
David Cameron told MPs that the decision to suspend Clark had been "Quite rightly taken by the head of the UK Border Agency, backed by home secretary, backed by me." However the PM neglected to mention that he had never been told about the pilot scheme.
Theresa May has now said on three occasions this week that the pilot scheme she authorised was designed to test a more "intelligence-led" approach at the UK Border Agency. She is contradicted by Brodie Clark, who says he came under pressure to reduce the length of queues.
In an opposition debate called for by Labour following PMQs, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper demanded to know - for the second time this week - how many people had wrongly got through under the reduced passport checks, and a full account of how many ports and airports had operated the pilot scheme - details Theresa May has so far been unable to provide.
Cooper asked the Home Secretary: "Has she even asked to see that data and if she hasn't, why on earth not? What have the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister been up to?"
Responding Ms May said: It's a bit rich coming from the party that gave us 2.2m net migration, the foreign national prisoners scandal, Sangatte, a 450,000 asylum backlog, no transitional controls for eight eastern European countries, the Human Rights Act and a points-based system that failed to reduce immigration."
At the end of the debate Immigration Minister Damian Green told MPs: "This is a shameful motion promoted by a shameless party and I urge the house to reject it." Green also refused to withdraw his attack on Shadow Immigration Minister, Chris Bryant, who he'd previously called a hypocrite.
As normal with opposition day debates, Labour's motion was rejected by a large margin. During the afternoon it was confirmed that Brodie Clark would appear before the Home Affairs committee in the Commons next Tuesday.