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The stick was found two weeks ago outside a branch of the Brewers Fayre pub chain in Cannock, Staffordshire. It was handed to the Mail on Sunday, who have given it to the police.

The Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said last: “I would have thought the basic security step would be to ensure that memory sticks with all this information contained on simply do not exist.”

According to a report in the Sunday Mirror, Purnell left correspondence from the Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman, relating to the case of one of his constituents, on a train from Macclesfield, Cheshire to Euston station in London on October 4.

The minister had been working on papers from his ministerial “red box”. A spokeswoman for Purnell told the paper: “It was one letter from an MP with the attached correspondence and was returned safely within three days. Obviously, James is very sorry for the mistake.”

Lost data

- Oct 08 Ministry of Defence loses disk with details of 100,000 armed forces

- Sept 08 Files on 200 patients lost by NHS Trust in Co Durham

- Aug 08 Home Office contractor loses memory stick with files on 84,000 prisoners

- June 08 Government official leaves secret documents on train

- April 08 Army captain’s laptop taken as he ate in McDonald’s

- Jan 08 Details of 600,000 potential navy recruits go missing in Birmingham

- Dec 07 Three million driving test candidates’ details lost

- Nov 07 HM Revenue & Customs loses child benefit records with details of 25m people

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