AMN / WEB DESK
Uinted Kingdom Foreign Affairs Minister Lord Zac Goldsmith has resigned, accusing PM Rishi Sunak of being “uninterested” in climate change.
It comes a day after the Tory peer was accused of undermining a Commons investigation into Boris Johnson.
He was among 10 Tories the Privileges Committee said was part of a campaign to interfere with their inquiry.
Lord Goldsmith said the government’s “apathy” on the environment made it “untenable” for him to remain minister for the international environment.
The Johnson supporter was the only serving minister to be criticised by the cross-party committee for attacking its work.
In a scathing resignation letter, which did not mention the Privileges Committee report, he said he had been “horrified” at the government abandoning its environmental commitments and withdrawing its leadership on the world stage.
In his two-page resignation letter, the former Foreign Office minister 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.”