A senior minister has resigned from Tony Blair's Labour government. Immigration minister Beverley Hughes resigned amid an ongoing row over immigration in which it was claimed that the Home Office approved visas which were based on forged documents.
The Tories had sought Ms Hughes' resignation to resign after it emerged that the Home Office had been warned 18 months ago of an "organised scam" involving Romanian and Bulgarian applicants for permission to stay in Britain.
The beleaguered immigration minister insisted on Tuesday that her conscience was clear over the allegations she mishandled the controversy - and she received the full backing of her boss, Home Secretary David Blunkett and the Prime Minister.
In a stormy Commons debate, shadow home secretary David Davis accused her of presiding over a "catastrophic failure" in the immigration system, which had seen embassy warnings of bogus applications routinely ignored by officials at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND).