The Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has rejected Conservative criticisms that the government should have acted more quickly to end the UK-wide flight ban following the volcanic ash cloud.

Speaking on the Today programme, Lord Adonis said that the government had "acted on advice throughout" and that he would not have pressed regulatory authorities to act faster to end the flight ban.

The shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers has called for a public inquiry into the government's handling of the ash crisis, saying that it needed to explain "why their regulatory system was so dismally ill-equipped to deal with the situation". Lord Adonis criticised the Tories for "playing politics with a volcanic eruption".

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