Blair under new pressure over Hutton

Tony Blair was under fierce pressure today to reveal late - and potentially sensational - evidence submitted in private to the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly.

Tory leader Michael Howard demanded that Downing Street publish the evidence, quietly sent to Lord Hutton in November after all the hearings were over, saying it raised "very serious concerns".

Mr Blair was preparing to face further calls to come clean at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons this afternoon.

The new material was being blamed for the delay in the publication date for the Hutton report. It had been expected next week but in the last few days it emerged that it is likely to be delayed, possibly until next month.

The immediate suspicion was that the last-minute dossier, news of which leaked out yesterday, contained Mr Blair's defence of his role in the way the name of the weapons scientist became public knowledge, the event followed by Dr Kelly's suicide.

On the final day of the inquiry in mid October, the top official at the Ministry of Defence, Sir Kevin Tebbit, revealed that Mr Blair had chaired the key meeting at which it was decided to confirm Dr Kelly's name to the media. His evidence appeared to contradict a categoric statement from the PM immediately after the scientist's death.

Asked whether he had authorised anyone in Downing Street or the Ministry of Defence to release the name, he replied: "Emphatically not. I did not authorise the leaking of the name of David Kelly." Mr Blair maintained that confirming Dr Kelly's name once his identity had emerged was "a completely different matter".

But many nonetheless saw Sir Kevin's evidence as the smoking gun which could pin responsibility for Dr Kelly's exposure on Mr Blair. Downing Street confirmed that late evidence had been put in but would give little further detail. Officials said, however, that it included material from all the Whitehall departments involved.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "If people were going off on the idea that what was referred to related to fresh evidence, that was not the case." He would not be drawn on whether the evidence included a reply to the testimony from Sir Kevin.

That testimony revealed that Mr Blair had presided over the meeting on 8 July when the decision was made to confirm Dr Kelly's identity if journalists put his name forward as the source for the BBC's charge that the Government acted misleadingly over the weapons threat from Iraq.