At Cabinet on Thursday 12 December Heseltine had an angry exchange with Thatcher about the allegedly cancelled meeting (Thatcher claimed that no such meeting had ever been scheduled). Westland was not on the Cabinet agenda that day and Thatcher refused to permit a discussion on the matter, arguing that Cabinet could not do so without the necessary papers. Heseltine asked for his dissent to be minuted, and this was not done, although Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong claimed that this had been an error and added it himself. On Monday 16 December Brittan told the House of Commons that the decision was up to Westland; on Wednesday 18 December Heseltine won the backing of the Commons Defence Committee for the European Consortium's latest bid. On Thursday 19 December the matter was discussed at Cabinet for ten minutes: Cabinet approved leaving the decision to Westland and Heseltine was ordered to cease campaigning for the European option.