BROWN

LONDON (Reuters):

The personal details of half of Britain have been mislaid by the government, Finance Minister Alistair Darling said yesterday, in another major blow to an administration reeling from the Northern Rock banking debacle.

The opposition Conservatives accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Government of laying 25 million people open to identity theft and bank fraud, ridiculing its management of the country.

The head of Britain's tax authority, Paul Gray, quit earlier and Darling described the incident as a "serious failure" on the part of the revenue collector, already embroiled in two other breaches of security.

Darling told Parliament two discs containing information on 25 million Britons had disappeared after being sent through HMRC's courier, Dutch mail and parcel company TNT NV, and a police investigation was under way. There was no sign of fraud at present, he said.

Child-benefit details

"The missing information contains details of all Child Benefit recipients: records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families," Darling said.

"These records include the recipient and their children's names, addresses and dates of birth, it includes Child Benefit numbers, National Insurance Numbers, and, where relevant, bank or building society account details."

Bookmakers cut the odds of Darling resigning to 3-1 from 8-1.

The Finance Minister, already under fire for the crisis at mortgage bank Northern Rock, which suffered Britain's first bank run in more than a century in September, said the details were not enough in themselves for someone to access a bank account fraudulently.

But he warned the public to monitor their accounts and gaurd against any unusual activity.

Political analysts said the revelation could not have come at a worse time with Prime Minister Brown's popularity already suffering after Northern Rock and with the economy on course for a sharp slowdown next year.