Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman described the media coverage as "ridiculous" but did not rebut the details.

The environmental group Friends of the Earth released a letter from a Cabinet Office official to government departments which it said "revealed...a Biotechnology Presentation Group which exists to spin government policy to the media".

A copy of the letter suggested the government should make a single announcement on GM policy to "get on the front foot".

It also said a report from the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Robert May, and the Chief Medical Officer should be "revised" to be made clearer for the average person.

Cabinet Office minister Jack Cunningham will make a statement to parliament on Friday about regulation of GM technology and release the report, his office confirmed.

Public opinion is set against "Frankenstein foods" but Blair is determined that Britain should remain at the forefront of the technology.

Damagingly, the government has not spoken with one voice.

Cunningham has said that if all regulatory hurdles were cleared, commercial planting of GM crops could begin next year. Environment Minister Michael Meacher says commercial planting would not get the go-ahead for a "considerable period of time".

English Nature, a government advisory body, has called for a five-year ban to allow research to yield results.

The Independent newspaper muddied the waters further by publishing a letter from May, which said: "I do not see how ministers could contemplate giving permission for commercial release of the GM crops covered by this research until January 2003 at the earliest."

May condemned the report as distorted, saying he had merely outlined the government's position and that science must set the time scale. "If these tests are going to take six months, they take six months. If they are going to take six years, they take six years," he told BBC radio.