Search on for lost CDs

Police were today carrying out a desperate search for two CDs containing the personal and banking details of 25 million British citizens.

The Metropolitan Police searched the offices of the National Audit Office in London and Northumbria Police were in action at the HM Revenue and Customs offices in Washington, Tyne and Wear.

They want to stop the records being used – possibly years ahead – by fraudsters or organised crime gangs.

Chancellor Alistair Dar-ling insisted that there was no evidence to date of criminal interference with the identities of the people who are the victims of the worst security blunder in Whitehall history.

He said banks would maintain vigilance over the accounts of individuals whose records have been lost.

Downing Street said Gordon Brown had "full confidence" in the Chancellor, and Mr Darling insisted he would not be resigning.

The Prime Minister was also in the spotlight in the Commons this afternoon, and was under pressure at Question Time from David Cameron as the man who, as chancellor, merged the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise and ordered a quarter of the combined department's jobs to be slashed.

Mr Darling denied that it was the merger or job cuts which lay behind the loss of the records, blaming an "unforgivable" breach of procedures for which he "apologised unreservedly".

"There are rules. They appear to have been breached with catastrophic results. I don't think it was the merger that caused the problem," he said.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said the Government had failed in its first duty to protect the public, and that plans to introduce ID cards were dead in the water.