Vince Cable was given a grilling over the sale of Royal Mail at a school cookery class this morning.

The Business Secretary, who cooked alongside students at Twickenham Academy, defended his decision to sell of the Royal Mail after a report said it cost the taxpayer £1bn.

Dr Cable is singled out in the report for dismissing claims the shares in Royal Mail were greatly undervalued, meaning taxpayers missed out on a bigger windfall from the sale. 

The Twickenham MP defended his departments decision and said they got "good value for money".

He said: "We wouldn't have done anything differently.

"It was done very professionally on the basis of good advice.

"We have delivered our basic objective and that was to secure the future of Royal Mail that delivers mail across the country six days a week and that is what we have done."

He admitted buying it at a fixed price was a risk but added: "We still got the best possible price that was possible at the time."