Transport Secretary Stephen Byers risked more accusations of "burying" bad news yesterday after he timed the publication of the minutes of a key meeting with Railtrack to clash with Gordon Brown's pre-Budget report.

The meeting between Byers and Railtrack chairman John Robinson in July has been pinpointed as a key moment in the demise of Railtrack because Byers claims it was then that he was told the full scale of Railtrack's financial crisis.

Although the minutes contain no record of this, departmental officals claim that at this point they stopped recording the conversation at the request of Railtrack's chairman.