The report, composed by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee contains information from UK intelligence services on Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum and 2017 general election. The document was referred to the Prime Minister’s Office on 17 October but will not be released in time for the UK general election if it is not released by the beginning of next week.

Dominic Grieve, Chairman of the cross-party committee, has called for Boris Johnson to publish the report by Tuesday, claiming the document was sent “on the understanding the Prime Minister has 10 working days to respond”.

Downing Street has claimed the process “usually takes several weeks to complete” however, with a spokesman telling BBC Diplomatic and Defence Editor Mark Urban: “There are a number of administrative stages/processes which reports such as this – which often contain sensitive information – have to go through before they are published.

“This usually takes several weeks to complete.”

According to the BBC report, Downing Street is “angry” with Mr Grieve for his intervention.

Mr Grieve told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “Our Committee has produced a report which has taken a long time to prepare, on the Russian threat.

“It covers everything, it covers espionage, it covers subversion, it covers everything which i think is likely to be of interest and also looks at our responses and the adequacy of them.

“This report was ready, we finished it by March of this year, it then goes through a complex process to be checked and redacted by the intelligence services and also by the Cabinet Office. That process was finished by the middle of October.

“So we then had the final stage, everybody had agreed it could be published, it goes to the Prime Minister on the understanding there is 10 working days in which the Prime Minister can respond.

“He’s only entitled to prevent its publication if there’s some overwhelming national security consideration which in view of the fact that it’s been through the previous stages of the process would be most unusual and has never happened before. But at the end of the 10 days which was on Thursday, we hadn’t had the clearance to publish.

“And of course if we can’t publish on Tuesday, we have to lay this report before Parliament when it is sitting, then in those circumstances it won’t get published before this election and indeed it might never be published at all.”

The BBC host remarked: “What the Government say is that period of time that you say is 10 days is actually quite often six weeks.”

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Mr Grieve responded: “That’s completely wrong, it’s untrue, it’s just false. The six weeks may be referring to the length of time it takes for the redaction process tot are place.

“That is a sort of ping pong which takes place between the Committee, the agencies and the Cabinet Office.”

Mr Grieve previously accused Mr Johnson of “sitting on” the report.

He told the Commons: “Parliament and the public ought to have and must have access to this report in the light of the forthcoming election and it’s really unacceptable for the prime minister to sit on it.”

He added: “It’s already been very carefully looked at by the Cabinet Office.”

A spokeswoman for Downing Street told Express.co.uk they are not commenting any further on the matter.

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