Labour accused over sale of Hutton report

Conservative MPs have complained about the "crassly insensitive" auction of a copy of the Hutton report, signed by Cherie Blair.

The copy of the report into the death of the scientist David Kelly was sold for £400 at a party fundraising event at the Arts Club in Mayfair last week. The former Labour spin-doctor Alastair Campbell had also put his signature to the document.

The Tory MP Stewart Jackson said he was writing to the party chairman, Hazel Blears, calling on her to apologise and to donate the money raised to an "appropriate" charity.

He has tabled a Commons motion accusing the party of being "arrogant and crassly insensitive" in "hawking" an official report into the death of a public servant as a "novelty item".

"We are talking about an official report into the death of a public servant who was also somebody's father and somebody's husband," Mr Jackson told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. "It is an extraordinary lapse of taste and is extremely insensitive to Dr Kelly's family."

The event was organised by the Pensions minister, James Purnell.