MPs yesterday accused the Government of "bringing forward" the collapse of Rover because of the General Election.

The Government's role in the collapse of Rover was heavily criticised as MPs debated the fall of the Birmingham car giant.

Conservative industry spokesman Charles Hendry criticised Rover's directors, but insisted: "The Government's hands are not clean in this affair either."

Ministers killed off the carmaker at the start of the election campaign - because they feared Labour's vote would suffer if the Rover crisis broke close to the May 5 polling day, opposition MPs claimed.

The suggestions were angrily denied by Labour MPs.

A report by John Duckers, Business Editor of The Birmingham Post, which accused the Government of choosing the date of Rover's collapse, was widely quoted during the debate.

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Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs demanded an explanation for the Government's decision to leak the news that Rover had been offered a #100 million "bridging loan" to stay afloat.

The source of this report has never emerged, but Trade and Industry Minister Meg Munn confirmed in the Commons yesterday that it came from the Department of Trade and Industry.

The leak, on April 1, destroyed confidence in MG Rover, which went into administration a week later, MPs said.

And they accused Patricia Hewitt, then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, of announcing on April 7 that Rover had called in administrators before the Rover board had actually decided to do so.

This ended any chance the carmaker had of survival, the MPs claimed.

John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Yardley who helped put together the Phoenix consortium five years ago, told MPs that Rover had been insolvent since December.

It kept trading because it was confident of securing a deal with Chinese manufacturer SAIC which would solve its financial problems.

The Government agreed to provide the bridging loan in February, to keep Rover afloat in the meantime, he said.

Mr Hemming told MPs: "Going public about the bridging loan on April 1... something like that is a massively sensitive piece of information.

"It had the effect of undermining the credibility of the company, of traders refusing to trade with the company during the next week."

Julie Kirkbride (Con Bromsgrove), said the Government killed Rover specifically because of the election.

She said: "It was much better that it did blow up early in a General Election campaign, rather than closer to the May 5 polling day."

Conservative Industry Spokesman Charles Hendry asked: "Does the Minister understand the cynicism of some of those assumptions of John Duckers, the Business Editor of The Birmingham Post, that it suited the Government's purpose to bring forward the closure of the company so that this happened in the early stages of the election campaign, and not the middle or the final stages of the campaign?"

Industry Minister Meg Munn replied that the Government would not have been able to keep details of the loan secret because it would have had to comply with European Union rules.