Tory minister Kemi Badenoch has told MPs she's "not an arsonist" in a bitter blue-on-blue scrap over the Government's EU law bonfire.
Business and Trade Secretary Ms Badenoch faced the wrath of Conservative Brexiteers after a climbdown on plans to tear up all retained laws by the end of the year.
In a fiery exchange with backbencher David Jones, she defended the move, fuming: "We are not arsonists.
"I am certainly not an arsonist. I am a Conservative. I don't think a bonfire of regulations is what we wanted.
"What we wanted was the reform and removal of things we did not need,"
It came during a grilling by the European Scrutiny Committee, when Ms Badenoch defended the Government U-turn over a "sunset" clause on all laws carried over from the EU.
This was ditched earlier this year and replaced with a narrowed target of 600 such laws to be revoked by the end of the year.
But it sparked a backlash from sections of the party who wanted to see 4,000 laws abolished.
Ms Badenoch defended the decision and insisted that Government policy had not fundamentally changed.
She told Clwyd West MP Mr Jones: "Until I did this, no one knew what was happening.
"No one knew what was being revoked or reformed. And we could end up in a situation where we're telling ourselves there is a big bonfire of regulations, and no one would have known what would happen until after the sunset."
Mr Jones said that the Commons had in fact voted for a "bonfire" of regulations and said that modifying the Bill in the House of Lords could be seen as "disrespectful" to MPs.
"What I am finding difficult to understand is that when a Bill passes through the House of Commons unamended and therefore clearly has the complete approbation of the House of Commons, you then change your approach completely," he told his party colleague.
"You don't tell the Commons you are changing your approach, you don't have the courtesy to come before this committee, so this committee can scrutinise the changes you are proposing, then you come back to the Commons, it having gone through the Lords, presenting the Commons effectively with a fait accompli.
"Don't you think that is disrespectful of the House of Commons?"
But Ms Badenoch rejected his claims and said the Government was still delivering on the intention behind the Bill.
She said that there would have been little point coming before the committee when she was new in post, before adding: "Something you are not saying, we had private meetings David, we had private meetings where we discussed this extensively, because I knew you had concerns.
"And it is public knowledge we had private meetings, because when I thought I was having private and confidential meetings I was reading the contents in the Daily Telegraph."
The Cabinet minister was also asked whether the changes to the Bill were part of a deal with the European Union to secure the Windsor Framework - Mr Sunak's latest Brexit deal aimed to tackle chaos in Northern Ireland.
Ms Badenoch told South Dorset MP Richard Drax that the framework had "nothing to do with it", warning her fellow MPs to stop floating suggestions that the UK still had not fully left the EU.
"We are at risk of talking down the significant thing we have achieved by making the perfect the enemy of the good," she said.
