A Government minister who launched a broadside on the airline industry's attitude to global warming has been told not to make any further public comment on the issue.
But the Department for the Environment insisted this was simply to avoid fuelling the controversy further and denied press reports that Ian Pearson was subjected to a humiliating dressing down by his boss, Environment Secretary David Miliband.
The climate change minister's comments sparked a furious response from the head of no-frills airline Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, who said Mr Pearson was "foolish and ill-informed" and "hasn't a clue what he's talking about".
In an interview published in The Guardian on Friday, Mr Pearson described Ryanair as "the irresponsible face of capitalism" and said Mr O'Leary was "completely off the wall".
His comments reflected frustration over a failure to make headway in talks over the inclusion of air travel in the EU's carbon emissions trading scheme, designed to cut the greenhouse gases which cause global warming.
The Times today quoted an unnamed adviser to Mr Miliband as saying the minister's comments were "incredibly unhelpful" and the Environment Secretary had made his displeasure known to Mr Pearson in a telephone call.
"It is not helpful for the Government to attack individuals," she was reported as saying. "From our point of view, these negative comments are incredibly unhelpful. This is not how you make Government policy."
But a Defra spokeswoman insisted: "There hasn't been any dressing down."
She denied Mr Pearson had been "silenced", but added: "He has been told not to do any more interviews which might accelerate the story."
