The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, tonight denied reports that his parliamentary answer on the legal case for the war with Iraq had secretly been drafted by Downing Street.

He did concede, however, that the parliamentary answer - issued in the frenetic last few days before the 2003 invasion - was his personal view, and was not the same as the confidential legal opinion he gave to the Government in his capacity as its chief law officer.

That confidential advice was the basis on which Britain's armed forces were convinced to invade. Tony Blair today once again rejected calls to publish the advice.

Lord Goldsmith's parliamentary answer states unambiguously that the war was legal. This week, however, it was claimed that his confidential advice to the Government admitted that a court challenge to the war's legality was possible.

In tonight's written statement, Lord Goldsmith denied that his parliamentary answer had been drafted in No 10 by Lord Falconer of Thoroton - then a Home Office minister, now the Lord Chancellor - and by the Prime Minister’s director of political relations, Baroness Morgan.

He said that the answer had been prepared in his own office with the involvement of Solicitor General Harriet Harman, two of his own officials, three Foreign Office officials and a QC, Christopher Greenwood. The then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, was also consulted.

"I was fully involved throughout the drafting process and personally finalised, and of course approved, the answer," he said. "No other minister or official was involved in any way."

Lord Goldsmith admitted however that while the answer represented his own view - that the war was legal under United Nations Security Council resolutions - it was not a summary of the legal opinion he gave to the Prime Minister.

"As I have always made clear, I set out in the answer my own genuinely held, independent view that military action was lawful under the existing Security Council resolutions," he said.

"The answer did not purport to be a summary of my confidential legal advice to Government."

It was reported this week that the answer issued on March 17 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, had been drawn up by Lord Falconer, now the Lord Chancellor, and Lady Morgan inside No 10.

A new book by human rights lawyer Philippe Sands QC claims that the answer did not reflect Lord Goldsmith’s formal legal opinion, given to the Prime Minister on March 7. It said that in his formal legal opinion, Lord Goldsmith had warned that any military action could be open to legal challenge.

In response, Michael Mates, a senior Tory MP who sat on the Butler Inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the case for war, today became the latest in a long line of senior figures to call for the confidential advice that the Government received to be published in full.

He acknowledged that law officers’ confidential advice to ministers normally remained private, but said that the Lord Chancellor's recent statement on the royal wedding showed that it was not an absolute rule.

"If you have a convention which simply says all matters between his lawyer and his client are confidential, I think everyone will understand that. You can’t do that, as it were, a la carte," Mr Mates told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"You can’t say: ‘We are in a hole here about Prince Charles’s wedding so we will publish the advice so people can see we did no wrong’. If no wrong was done over this bit of advice (the Iraq advice) either ... then I believe it is incumbent upon the Government to again make an exception and publish that advice."

A couple of hours later, at his monthly Downing Street press conference, Tony Blair refused once more to publish the advice.

“(The Attorney General) has been over these questions literally scores of times and the position has not changed,” he said.

Asked whether the March 17 answer truly reflected the Attorney-General’s views, Mr Blair responded: “That’s what he said and that’s what I say. He has dealt with this time and time and time again,” before refusing to answer any more questions on the subject.

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