Lord Malloch-Brown has launched a coded attack on Tony Blair’s decision to release an intelligence dossier in the run-up to the Iraq war.

The controversial Foreign Office Minister said that he was “scratching his head” to work out why the government dossier was published. The remark came at Question Time in the Lords, when Lord Malloch-Brown refused to comment on American intelligence suggesting that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

He said that he was told it was “not the practice of this or previous governments to comment on intelligence matters”. But crossbencher Lord Butler of Brockwell, a former head of the Civil Service, asked: “How do you square your statement . . . with the decision of the previous Government to publish a dossier on weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war in Iraq and the statement of the previous Prime Minister that what he now wished he had done is publish the whole JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessments.”

Lord Malloch-Brown said he had hoped that Lord Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary, would not be in the House for the question. He added: “Lord Butler will notice that I referred to the fact I was told this was the practice. But as someone who was out of the country at the time, I scratch my head to reconcile this with the practice at the time Lord Butler was involved with these issues.” He then pointed out that commenting publicly on the dossier is “probably not a prudent thing to do”.

He had been asked about the US National Intelligence Estimate, published last week, which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. He insisted: “The fundamental problem that we face is Iran’s pursuit of a uranium enrichment programme that has, as far as we can see, no civilian application.”

Lord Malloch-Brown has been dubbed “gaffe-prone” after suggesting that Britain could hold talks with Hamas or Hezbollah and that London and Washington would no longer be “joined at the hip”.

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