TONY Blair's failure to take part in a Commons debate on Iraq yesterday provoked angry attacks from opposition MPs, who accused him of failing in his democratic duty.

The Prime Minister attended the CBI conference, held talks on Northern Ireland and met MPs to discuss the controversy over gay adoption instead of attending the Iraq debate but he had said earlier that he would account to MPs when the British forces had completed Operation Sinbad in and around Basra.

Later he was spared further embarrassment after the SNP fell foul of parliamentary procedure. After mobilising Tony Blair's critics to give the government a bloody nose, they failed to organise a vote.

Earlier, speaking in the debate, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, told MPs that British troops could hand over control of the Iraqi city to local authorities this spring.

During the first full-scale Commons debate on Iraq since 2004, Mrs Beckett said it was hoped that the lead responsibility in all 18 of Iraq's provinces would be handed over to the country's security forces by November.

William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, was not satisfied, arguing that it was unacceptable for Mr Blair to skulk out of this chamber at a time when the situation in Iraq hung in the balance. "Where would this House have been in the Second World War if Winston Churchill had only attended when there was a turning point'?", he asked.

Earlier, during Prime Minister's Question Time, Mr Blair rejected Sir Menzies Campbell's call for British troops to pull out of Iraq by the end of October.

The Prime Minister said it would be disastrous to set an arbitrary timetable for the withdrawal of British troops. In response to Sir Menzies, he said: "That would send the most disastrous signal to the people that we are fighting in Iraq."

Mrs Beckett, opening the debate, declared that no Prime Minister in the history of the country had put themselves before the scrutiny of Parliament more than this one.

Mr Hague maintained that there was an overwhelming case for a high level Privy Council inquiry into the invasion. He revealed that the Tories would force a Commons vote on the issue if ministers had not agreed before the end of the year.