Mr Davies had told the chamber that "not for the first time in my life, I have been badly beaten and hurt".

He did not elaborate but added: "I believe my defences are strong enough to see me through this very trying time."

It was later disclosed that the 52-year-old former cabinet minister revealed his unhappy early life in South Wales while briefing a journalist before the filming of a television profile in January last year.

At the time, Mr Davies said the remarks were completely off the record and the comments were not to be used.

But on Monday evening, having talked to the former Welsh secretary, the programme-makers included the interview in a film for Welsh channel S4C on Mr Davies' sudden resignation and the Welsh Assembly leadership crisis.

In the interview Mr Davies tells his interviewer he developed a libertarian attitude as a reaction to his traumatic upbringing.

"I'm very much a libertarian at heart and the inclusiveness that I argue is a reaction to intolerance," he says.

"At a very personal level, I had a father who was very much an authoritarian figure, a very brutal figure.