Communities secretary Sajid Javid has clashed with his Labour rival Andrew Gwynne over errors in the provisional settlement as he saw off a threatened rebellion.Speaking in the House of Commons last week, Mr Javid claimed he was not told about the errors - first revealed by The MJ- until 16 January and therefore rejected accusations that he had misled MPs and broke the minsterial code when presenting the provisional settlement on 19 December.However, a letter from Mr Javid to Mr Gwynne said 'we knew the overall scale of the error in the VOA [Valuation Office Agency] published data shortly before' 19 December.Labour sources suggested that if officials knew the data was wrong but did not tell ministers there were 'some real problems within the department'.Mr Gwynne accused Mr Javid and said he had written to prime minister Theresa May to draw her attention to the 'botched settlement'.
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