Home Secretary Theresa May was seared by Labour criticism yesterday for serving up a “review of a review” of how her department handled allegations about paedophiles lurking in Britain’s Establishment.

Child abuse charity NSPCC head Mark Wanless has been picked to look over a confidential dossier filed last year on Tory former home secretary Leon (now Lord) Brittan’s handling of child sexual abuse claims.

Mr Wanless will be “assisted” by an as yet unidentified senior legal figure.

Ms May’s announcement follows the revelation that an internal investigation into the Home Office’s handling of organised child abuse found that 114 relevant files were missing, spanning a period of 20 years.

Among them is a dossier compiled by late MP Geoffrey Dickens in the early 1980s that is said to name high-profile members of a paedophile ring involved in alleged abuse at south-west London’s Elm Guest House.

But Ms May also repeatedly told the House of Commons under questioning that she did not want any inquiry “in the initial structure” to exercise powers to subpoena witnesses or publish information that could jeopardise criminal investigations.

Nor could she promise that the inquiry would exhaust itself to learn the fate of the missing files.

“It’s not a review of the 114 files,” she said. “It’s a review of all the work that was done by the investigator to see how the Home Office handled the letters from Geoffrey Dickens and other information that came to it and ensured it was handled appropriately.

“It will look at whether further information is available in relation to those and whether the original review’s assessment of their significance was reasonable.”

But Labour shadow Yvette Cooper was unsatisfied.

“Is this simply a review of a review or will it look again at the original material?” she asked.

The inquiry would join a raft of similar historic investigations into child abuse ranging from the BBC to the NHS and care homes, she said.

“All at their heart have a similar problem — child victims weren’t listened to, weren’t heard, weren’t protected and too many institutions let children down,” she said.

Lord Brittan confirmed yesterday he had been questioned by police about the missing files but described allegations of inaction as “without foundation.”

He claimed: “I passed this bundle of papers to the relevant Home Office officials for examination, as was the normal and correct practice.”