The Tories have asked the European Commission to investigate the government's data blunders, as it yesterday emerged that Revenue & Customs lost the details of more than 6,500 pension firm customers.

Theresa Villiers, shadow transport secretary, asked the Commission to investigate potential breaches of EU data protection law caused by the recent losses of personal information by the government, including the missing details of 25m people on the child protection database and the mislaid records of 3m learner drivers.