David Lammy has been accused of “rank incompetence” by fellow ministers after a multitude of blunders over prisoners being mistakenly freed.

The accidental release of a 24-year-old Algerian prisoner, who is on the sex offenders register, from HMP Wandsworth in London on October 29, was the core of the complaints by Labour frontbenchers.

Mr Lammy, the Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, subsequently dismissed a call from Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to return to Parliament after he repeatedly refused to confirm that Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was on the run amid fears of “career suicide”.

One minister told The Times: “It’s cowardly. He should have fronted up and owned it. I still don’t understand why he didn’t confirm it or make a statement in the Commons. He left it to a junior minister to do the broadcast round this morning. The handling is terrible.”

Another minister added: “The PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] are deeply unhappy. They think the way he has handled this is awful.

“Why can’t he just hold his hands up?”

A senior Government source said: “It feels less like a contempt [of parliament] issue, more just rank incompetence and frankly pretty dodgy.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stood by Mr Lammy when pressed about it by reporters in Brazil ahead of Cop30.

He said: “Let me just say how angry and frustrated I am that these mistakes have been made in releasing people. They’re intolerable and they shouldn’t be made.

“A lot of it comes from the burden and the strain on the system because of the failures of the last Government. But I recognise it’s our job to step up and to fix this, and we will.

“David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, has convened the governors to talk to them about what more can be done, but we must put the systems in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, and we will.”

Pressed on whether Mr Lammy was telling the truth on Wednesday or in his latest comments, Sir Keir said: “David Lammy can speak for himself on that. And I’m absolutely clear that he’s setting out the facts to the best of his knowledge, and that’s the right thing for him to do.”

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Kaddour-Cherif said it was not his fault as he was arrested by Metropolitan Police officers following his escape.

Footage of his arrest, which was captured by Sky News, showed him initially standing by the passenger window of a police van before officers arrested him, as a small group of people gathered on the pavement to watch.

Wearing a grey hoodie, black beanie and black backpack, he denied that he was “Brahim” and, when asked if he knew him, said: “Everyone knows him he’s in (the) news.”

Before he was put in the back of the van, Kaddour-Cherif turned to those gathered and said: “Look at the justice of the UK they release people by mistake after this they ‘ah ah ah’. It’s not my f****** fault.”

Following his arrest, Mr Lammy said: “I can confirm Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been recaptured and is back in custody. My thanks are with the police and staff at HMPPS who have been working around the clock.

“We inherited a prison system in crisis and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing.

“I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.

“That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”

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