Oliver Letwin... He's bin foolish

Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin today promised to stop dumping official documents in public rubbish bins after he was caught disposing of letters in St James's Park.

Mr Letwin, David Cameron's policy adviser, was spotted on five separate occasions throwing correspondence about national security and terrorism into the park bin.

Some of the documents he threw away revealed private details of his constituents. The Prime Minister's spokesman said: "Clearly it is not a sensible way to dispose of documents."

As the Cabinet Office announced it was investigating, MPs demanded an official inquiry and said Mr Letwin was "cavalier". Labour leader Ed Miliband described his conduct as "very strange behaviour".

The Information Commissioner also began looking into whether the minister had broken strict data protection laws, saying breaches would be taken "very seriously".

Mr Letwin tried to explain the clear security lapse by saying he simply likes to deal with parliamentaryand constituency correspondence in the fresh air.

But a spokesman for the minister said: "Mr Letwin will no longer dispose of the documents in this way."

Mr Cameron's adviser, 55, was caught throwing away more than 100 papers in the park close to Whitehall between September 7 and October 10. Images even show him handing documents to a rubbish collector as he chats on a mobile phone.

None was shredded, contrary to Whitehall best practice, and some were clearly sensitive. Among them were five relating to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which oversees the work of MI5 and MI6.

A letter dated April 26 from Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, who chairs a Commons group on human rights, to ISC chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind said the ISC "failed to get to the truth" about the rendition of terrorist suspects.

Another related to the London terror attacks of July 7, 2005. Sir Malcolm dismissed security concerns about the letters, telling the Standard they were "extremely boring". But he said the ISC was looking into what had been involved.

There was also correspondence relating to members of the public. Some documents contained people's telephone numbers and addresses, which could enable identity theft.