Rishi Sunak and Lord Zac Goldsmith were locked in a war of words on Friday after he resigned as a Government minister launching a scathing attack on the PM over the environment.
The peer, a former MP for Richmond Park who was minister for the international environment, tore into the Prime Minister for allegedly not being sufficiently focused on eco-issues.
In his resignation letter, he said: “The problem is not that the Government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our Prime Minister, are simply uninterested.
“That signal, or lack of it, has trickled down through Whitehall and caused a kind of paralysis.”
Lord Goldsmith is a former editor of the Ecologist magazine and one of the most high profile Tories with an expertise on the environment.
Publishing his resignation letter at around 9am on Friday, he tweeted: “It has been a privilege to have been able to make a difference to a cause I have been committed to for as long as I remember.
“But this govt’s apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we face makes continuing in my role untenable. Reluctantly I am therefore stepping down”
Lord Goldsmith had a day earlier been reprimanded in a report by the Commons Privileges Committee for criticism he had made of its inquiry into Boris Johnson which found that the ex-Prime Minister deliberately misled Parliament over the partygate scandal.
Responding to the peer’s resignation letter, Mr Sunak wrote back: “I accept your resignation.
“You were asked to apologise for your comments about the Privileges Committee as we felt they were incompatible with your position as a minister of the crown. You have decided to take a different course.”
But later, the peer responded to Mr Sunak, saying: “In response to some misleading briefing from Number 10, I’d like to make clear I am happy to apologise for publicly sharing my views on the Privilege Committee.”
Lord Goldsmith and other allies of Mr Johnson, including ex-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, were accused by the committee of trying to undermine it.
The committee, which has a Tory majority and was chaired by Labour’s Harriet Harman, highlighted Lord Goldsmith retweeting a tweet calling the inquiry a witch hunt and kangaroo court, and stating: “Exactly this. There was only ever going to be one outcome and the evidence was totally irrelevant to it.”
On Friday, responding to No10, the peer argued that parliamentary democracy “can only be strengthened by robust exchange and scrutiny” and that parliamentarians should be free to be critical of reports and proceedings.
“But as a minister I shouldn’t have commented publicly,” he added, but he stood by his criticism of the PM on the environment.
In his two-page resignation letter, former Foreign Office minister Lord Goldsmith had sought on Friday to focus on the environment not the Privileges Committee row.
He wrote: “The past four years have been an exhilarating experience for me, and I will forever be grateful that I was put in a position where I could do more for the environment than I thought possible in a lifetime.
“I’m proud that in recent years the UK has played a critical, indeed defining role - leading powerful coalitions of ambition and securing world-changing commitments over a very wide range of environmental issues.”
But he added: “Prime Minister, having been able to get so much done previously, I have struggled even to hold the line in recent months.”
He concluded the letter: “It has been a privilege to be able to work with so many talented people in government, in particular my Private Office, and to have been able to make a difference to a cause I have been committed to for as long as I remember. But this government's apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced makes continuing in my current role untenable. With great reluctance I am therefore stepping down as a Minister in order to focus my energy where it can be more useful."
Responding to the resignation, shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband tweeted: “This is a devastating indictment of Rishi Sunak and his whole government on climate and nature.
“Serving ministers are so ‘horrified’ by their approach they are resigning from the government.
“The Conservatives should hang their heads in shame.”
The peer failed in a bid to become London Mayor in 2016, losing to Sadiq Khan.
Earlier this week, the PM was warned today not to “mess around” by delaying action until after the General Election to get the UK back as a world leader in tackling climate change.
Chris Stark, chief executive of Britain’s Climate Change Committee, said the country had fallen behind other nations in the battle against global warming amid Tory leadership infighting in Government.
The watchdog accused ministers of “ducking strategic decisions” on issues such as transport, energy and home heating.
The Government has pledged to reduce emissions by 68 per cent by 2030 but the CCC said the pace of scale-up action is “worryingly slow”.
But a Government spokesperson said: “The UK is cutting emissions faster than any other G7 country and attracted billions of investment into renewables, which now account for 40 per cent of our electricity.”
Lord Goldsmith’s resignation is another blow to Mr Sunak, particularly with his criticism on the environment, and comes a day after the Appeal Court blocked his flagship Rwanda deportation plan to deal with the Channel “small boats” crisis.
The Tories also risk losing up to four by-elections, one in Uxbridge and South Ruislip after Mr Johnson stood down as the MP ahead of the Privileges Committtee’s report.
Another ally of Mr Johnson, Nigel Adams, resigned as MP for Selby and Ainsty, and ex-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said she was quitting as MP for Mid-Bedfordshire but has so far failed to do so.
Both Ms Dorries and Mr Adams were believed to have been on Mr Johnson’s peerages list but in the end did not get elevated to the Lords amid a row between Mr Sunak and Mr Johnson.
