MPs have accused defence officials of laziness and showing disrespect for Parliament after important figures were submitted at the last minute.

The Commons defence committee cancelled Tuesday’s evidence session with Ministry of Defence permanent secretary Bill Jeffrey and finance director Trevor Woolley after just 20 minutes.

They had been due to discuss the ministry’s annual report and accounts but a memorandum containing changes, including news that manning targets for April 2008 would be missed, had only reached committee staff the day before, and for some MPs just minutes before, the meeting.

Committee chairman James Arbuthnot said they would not hear Jeffrey and Woolley's evidence because the "extra information is so critical to the things that we need to ask about and the work that the MoD does".

He added: "We are extremely unhappy with this delay."

Jeffrey was asked to explain why the original October 31 deadline and an extension to November 5 had been missed. The permanent secretary said the MoD's situation was "changing quite steadily" and that he had wanted to give the committee the most up to date figures.

But he added: "It should have come to you earlier on."

Arbuthnot said the committee was "distinctly angry", while Conservative MP Robert Key said MPs were "being treated with enormous disrespect".

Key told Jeffrey that "the sheer laziness of the MoD" was something MPs, service personnel and their families had long been complaining about.

Labour's Brian Jenkins was similarly incandescent, and asked if the department "think they are unaccountable, that they are not answerable to Parliament?"

Jeffrey admitted to MPs that he first knew the target would be missed when he received the memorandum on either the November 1 or November 2.

He had then taken it home to examine over the weekend, before submitting it to the secretary of state on November 5 so that they could be passed on to the committee.

Arbuthnot told Jeffrey it was "unacceptable" that he had submitted the information to the secretary of state "on the day of the extended deadline, which itself was the final cut off point".

The committee is to arrange a new date within the next few weeks. The chairman told Jeffrey and Woolley that they would be expected to be flexible about when that would be.