The prime minister and the chancellor are continuing to meet with other Cabinet members today to discuss Britain's approach to the euro.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown will quiz ministers on their response to the Treasury's technical documents on British entry into the single currency.

On Monday Downing Street refused to say which individual ministers were meeting Blair and Brown - insisting it would not provide "a running commentary" on events.

Having spent the weekend weighing through the 18 documents, amounting to 2500 pages of detailed economic analysis, the Cabinet will now get the opportunity to feed their opinions into the government assessment on the five economic tests for euro entry.

The chancellor will give a statement to the House of Commons on the outcome of the tests on June 9, after a series of special Cabinet meetings and this week's unusual trilateral discussions.

It is widely expected that the Cabinet will say "No" to recommending a referendum at this point.

But debate centres on whether to keep open the option of reassessing the tests within the lifetime of this parliament and campaigning for entry before the next general election.

Brown is thought to be sceptical about the chances of winning a national euro ballot before 2006, whereas Blair and a majority of Cabinet allies want to keep the idea alive.

The prevarication has led the Conservative leader to end his party's self-imposed silence on the issue and begin to voice his long standing objection to the single currency.

Iain Duncan Smith said that "no government can get round the idea that at some point you have to make choices".

The chancellor's five tests were a "sham", he claimed, "as there is no case for saying that any of these tests have been met".