The transport committee's chairman has hit back at claims by the deputy prime minister that she helped play a part in the resignation by Stephen Byers.

John Prescott had claimed that a hard-hitting report by the committee, headed by Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, was the final "knife in the back" for Byers who resigned as transport secretary last week.

Dunwoody told the BBC on Wednesday said the problem was not a lack of party loyalty on her part but a 10-year transport plan that was flawed.

"The sad thing is that transport is essential to this country and has to work. We have to stop confusing the people who talk about the problems with the problem. We identified what the government has got to put right now in the next three years. These were not things we made up," she said.

She rejected Prescott's claim that the committee's report into the 10-year plan had led to Byers quitting and hit back at the deputy prime minister.

"I am quite impressed we have the ability to get rid of cabinet ministers...If I had realised that some time ago there would have been a whole lot of changes at the top. There is a problem with wanting to shoot the messenger because you don't like the message," Dunwoody said.

"Although I am extremely fond of the deputy prime minister, an affection that doesn't seem to be returned, it is true that occasionally his language is as intemperate as it is incoherent, which is sad."She also rejected Prescott's claim that the cross-party group of MPs had failed to understand the 10-year plan.

"It is possible I am not terribly bright, but the reality was that it was based on all the evidence we took. If we didn't understand it perhaps there was a difficulty in communication at government level.

"The bulk of the report spells out in considerable detail where we think the government have got it wrong and where they are going to get it right in the future."

Her advice to Alistair Darling, successor to Byers, was that he should concentrate on results.

"The government have got to decide what their objectives are, how much money they are going to put into them, how quickly they want to bring these objectives about," she said.

"We do just have to be a bit adult about this and stop saying, if you want to get transport into some kind of shape it has to be a battle between public transport and cars. It doesn't. What it has to be is a sensible acknowledgement of the fact that in a crowded island unless you plan we are all going to be sitting in traffic jams from here on."