Cabinet minister 'misled' Parliament over welfare reform However, Margaret Hodge, the committee's chairman, has now cast doubt on those claims and said that senior figures in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had sought to influence her report. In comments to students on November 11 - four days after the publication of he committee's report - Mrs Hodge said: "I can't tell you how much inappropriate talking there was to me and other members of the committee, by both ministers and civil servants, either to get me to blame the permanent secretary in the DWP and therefore transfer blame away from Iain Duncan Smith or to put the blame on Mr Devereux and to ensure ministers escaped blame." Her disclosures will put pressure on Mr Lansley as well as Mr Duncan Smith, who has faced major criticism for his handling of the Coalition's flagship Universal Credit scheme. Mr Lansley was questioned in Parliament about the claims on November 7 and told MPs that there was "no truth in the allegations." He said: "I have talked to [Mr Duncan Smith] and I can tell the House that there is no need for a statement. I can tell... the House that there is no truth... I can tell the House now that there is no truth in the allegations about talking to members of the Public Accounts Committee. I talked to the Secretary of State and I can tell the House that. A source said: "[Mr Lansley] said he had discussed it with Iain Duncan Smith before he went into business questions and that is why he said what he said. They had a discussion. Universal Credit, regarded as Mr Duncan Smith's personal political mission, will merge several benefits into a single payment that will be adjusted to ensure that claimants are always better off in work than on welfare. Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "It is now quite clear from Margaret Hodge's words that she and other members of the Public Accounts Committee had direct pressure put on them in a desperate attempt to play the blame game over the failings of Universal Credit. As Margaret says, this was 'inappropriate talking' by ministers and officials. However, Andrew Lansley gave a very different version of events to the House of Commons. Andrew Lansley said there was 'no truth' in claims that members of the Public Accounts Committee had been nobbled - and added he had spoken to Iain Duncan Smith about it. The Leader of the Commons must now apologise if he has been misleading MPs - and Iain Duncan Smith must finally come clean. To whom did he and his team speak and what did they say? A DWP spokesman said: "The Secretary of State has publicly backed the permanent secretary throughout this process. He never asked for anyone to be named in the report. A spokesman for Mr Lansley said: "We have nothing to add or retract from what the Leader said in the House." The public accounts committee report found that the Universal Credit welfare reform suffered "extraordinarily poor" management, with secretaries authorising tens of millions in spending without proper supervision. The report suggested that the Coalition should consider delaying welfare reform. The complex reform has been dogged by mismanagement, the committee found, accusing officials of concealing problems. The Department for Work and Pensions "only reported good news and denied the problems that had emerged." Financial management of the reform was so lax that a personal assistant to a senior official approved spending of £8.7million without oversight. Another PA approved two purchase orders worth more than £23 million.