THE Conservatives last night gave a "crystal clear" pledge to jettison plans for Exeter to break away from the rest of Devon, as the Government faced yet more claims the move is politically motivated.

The Tories used an opposition day debate in the House of Commons to challenge Labour over the "legality, motivation and financial probity" of the move to create a single authority in the city, ending the traditional two-tier structure of district and county councils.

Shadow local government minister Bob Neil said the process "has been utterly lamentable and wholly indefensible".

In July 2007, ministers rejected the Exeter bid because the set-up costs would not be paid back by savings within five years. But the government abandoned the tough financial criteria last month when it announced Exeter needed to break away from the rest of Devon to become an economic driver for the region.

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Mr Neil said: "The Government is pursuing the politics of division, pitting town against county and I would like to make it crystal clear that any incoming Conservative Government would revoke any legislation, putting a stop to this process straight away."

It is claimed Labour is worried about the electoral prospects of Culture Secretary and Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw, who defends a notional majority of 8,559.

"This process is scandalous gerrymandering; it has nothing to do with good governance and is being done for political purposes," said Mr Neil.

Last month Peter Housden, the permanent secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, wrote an explosive letter to Mr Denham warning the change would put public money at risk and a legal challenge to the decision would likely be upheld by the courts.

In an attempt to repair relations with local authorities in Devon, local government minister Rosie Winterton yesterday wrote to council leaders urging them to work together to "drive forward economic growth in their regions by creating more innovative and efficient services". She also offered a senior official to "act as a Champion in Whitehall".

Councillors remain unimpressed by the plans. Coun John Tucker, leader of South Hams District Council, said: "An overwhelming number of local people want to retain the status quo and have no wish to waste more time and spend huge sums of money on reorganising local government in the current economic climate."

Coun Rob Hannaford, a Lib-Dem on both the city and county councils, said: "It's vital that this mad scheme to give Exeter unitary status on the current boundaries is given proper scrutiny in Parliament as we all know that the dodgy figures just don't add up."

East Devon Tory MP Hugo Swire said "most people think the whole thing stinks" while Geoffrey Cox (Con, Torridge and West Devon) claimed the move was a "political fix worthy of a banana republic".

Mr Bradshaw hit out at the Tories: "It is extraordinary, given all the important challenges facing Britain, the Conservatives used their precious debating time to pursue their vendetta against Exeter and Norwich regaining full local democratic control of their own services."