Labour has called on the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, to explain how he can reconcile Foreign Office emails saying Boris Johnson authorised a controversial airlift of animals from Kabul in August with his own assertion to MPs earlier this week that this was not the case.
A letter sent by John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, pressed Wallace for an explanation hours after peers had demanded a similar explanation from the Foreign Office minister Zac Goldsmith, who also denied that Johnson had approved the rescue in a statement he made to the Lords in December.
