Choosing between pylon routes is like being asked to choose between hanging and beheading, Westminster heard.

A quartet of MPs challenged a government junior minister on pylons through their constituencies.

David Kidney, parliamentary under-secretary of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, heard a 30-minute adjournment debate at the end of business on Tuesday in the House of Commons.

Four MPs grilled him over National Grid's pylon consultation to get power from Hinkley Point to Avonmouth.

Dr Liam Fox, Woodspring MP, said: "The consultation process that we have been given has offered the choice between two different land corridors with overhead cables.

"It is not much of a consultation – the choice between being hanged and being beheaded does not boil down to much of a choice at all.

"Furthermore, there is a strong suspicion that the second option – corridor two – clearly represents environmental vandalism of such a degree that it was bound to be objected to violently."

Dr Fox was backed by Wells and Weston-super-Mare MPs, David Heathcoat-Amory and John Penrose. Bridgwater MP Ian Liddell-Grainger was also there.

Criticism was fired at alternative routes like undersea and underground being struck out before the consultation stage, the cost to the environment and health from pylons and the final decision lying with the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission quango.

Mr Kidney responded: "The flavour of some of the letters that my department is receiving, either lodging objections to the proposal or copying responses to us for information, tends to support what he (Dr Fox) outlined.

"There is a sense that the consultation period over Christmas and the New Year was inadequate; that local people have not received sufficient information; that there has been a failure to put forward the range of options for public comment; and that National Grid has dismissed underground and submarine options as too expensive.

"There are also concerns about health risks.

"My understanding, however, is that there must be a second-stage consultation, which will run from February 2010 to March 2011, for which National Grid will be seeking views on its preferred route corridor, and on the preliminary environmental information as part of its environmental impact assessment for the project.

"National Grid is therefore at the very beginning of the process for the proposal."

Consultation ends tonight at midnight.