CHARLES CLARKE was under pressure last night to resign despite his pledge to stay in office to put right the fiasco over the release of foreign prisoners that has left the Government in turmoil.

Labour MPs feared that the Home Secretary was at the mercy of events after it emerged that 288 prisoners were set free even after he was alerted to the problems in the Home Office last July.

It was revealed yesterday that police were handed the first names from a list of 900 prisoners only on Tuesday, months after ministers were told of the bungle.

David Cameron, The Tory leader, said that Mr Clarke was unable to give proper leadership to his department and the leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Menzies Campbell also called for him to go.

Labour MPs, generally supportive of Mr Clarke, were warning that his position might become impossible if any of the foreign prisoners allowed out without being considered for deportation proceedings were later found to have committed serious crimes.

If that happened, the Prime Minister might be tempted to move Mr Clarke in his long-awaited reshuffle, now expected as part of a relaunch if next week’s local elections go badly.

The scandal was one of a trio of disasters to hit the Government yesterday, with John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, confessing to a two-year affair with a secretary, and Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, being heckled by nurses at their annual conference.

Tony Blair admitted under pressure from the Tory leader in the Commons that he was not aware of the scale of the Home Office blunder, and the fact that a further 288 prisoners had been freed, when he turned down Mr Clarke’s offer to resign over the issue at a meeting at about 4pm on Tuesday.

Even so, Mr Blair accepted Mr Clarke’s explanation that measures put in place last autumn to deal with the problem of foreign prisoners had taken time to work through the system.

Mr Clarke is expected to survive, with Mr Blair determined not to give a scalp to the opposition parties, provided he does not encounter any further misfortunes. He is one of Mr Blair’s most valued ministers and backs his staying in office until at least 2008.

Mr Cameron, who has refrained from calling for ministerial heads to roll as a general policy, pressed for Mr Clarke to go in a Question Time clash in which he clearly got the better of a downbeat Mr Blair. He said that ministers had been made aware of the situation last July but that 288 prisoners had then been freed. He asked why Mr Clarke had in an interview on Tuesday described that as “very, very few people”.

“This Home Secretary has presided over systemic failure. He’s failed to deal with it and last night he misled the public about the scale of the problem.”

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, repeated calls for Mr Clarke to resign, saying: “I can’t think of a stronger demonstration of a minister not in charge of his department.

“This is yet another example of his department’s failure and incompetence. There is no excuse for the Home Secretary not knowing about this.”

Sir Menzies questioned Mr Clarke’s suitability for office, asking: “How can the Prime Minister not ask for his resignation?” Ian Gibson, Labour MP for the Norwich North constituency next door to that of Mr Clarke, said: “If one of these people were to re-offend, I think he would then really feel that was intolerable to the public. It would add a whole new dimension to it and hopefully he will get to them before anything like that happens. But if it was bad he would probably have to resign.

“Despite it being systemic, the buck stops with the man who runs the system. It is like football — you don’t sack the players, you sack the manager.”

In the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, Labour MP for Chorley, said that the public expected officials to resign in the Home Office. He added: “And I have got to say the public opinion is they also expect elected members to consider their position when actions so seriously have happened and I must pass that advice to you.”

Mr Clarke said that he had considered his position and had decided to stay on “to put the situation straight”.

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