Zac Goldsmith has quit as a climate minister and delivered a scathing rebuke of the Government’s green record while accusing Rishi Sunak of being “simply uninterested” in the environment.
In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Lord Goldsmith said the UK has “withdrawn our leadership on climate” and attacked the PM for attending a party thrown by Rupert Murdoch instead of attending a climate summit.
But it also comes after the Tory peer, who is a close ally of Boris Johnson, was rebuked in a report by the Privileges Committee for being part of a coordinated attempt to undermine the panel’s inquiry which found the former prime minister repeatedly misled Parliament over Partygate.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman on Thursday said Mr Sunak had full confidence in Lord Goldsmith.
But the peer quit on Friday morning, accusing the Prime Minister of fostering “apathy” on environmental issues in Whitehall.
He said he was “horrified” to see the Kept Animals Bill “ditched” and attacked Mr Sunak for flip flopping on attending international environment summits like Cop27, criticising him for attending Mr Murdoch’s party last week instead of the “critically important” Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.
The Prime Minister also faced criticism for “effectively abandoning” a pledge to spend £11.6bn of aid on climate and the environment, arguing it would send a bad signal to small island and climate-vulnerable states and G7 allies, arguing this will “shred any reputation we have of being a reliable partner”.
In his two-page resignation letter, Lord Goldsmith 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.”
He added: “Prime Minister, having been able to get so much done previously, I have struggled even to hold the line in recent months.
“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.”
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.”
The Liberal Democrats said the Prime Minister should have “had the guts” to sack Lord Goldsmith the day before his ministerial resignation following his “brutal” censure in a report by the Privileges Committee on Thursday.
Sarah Olney, the party’s Treasury spokeswoman, said: “This Conservative chaos is never ending.
“Every day brings more more resignations and scandal in this depressing Westminster soap opera.
“Rishi Sunak should have had the guts to sack Zac Goldsmith yesterday when he was brutally criticised by the partygate watchdog. Sunak is clearly too weak to control his own party.
“Zac Goldsmith’s resignation has at least confirmed what we have known all along, that Rishi Sunak’s Government doesn’t give a damn about the environment and animal rights.
“They have scrapped plans to stop puppy smuggling, watered down climate change action and let water companies pump sewage in our rivers. What a sorry state of affairs this is.”
Claire Bass, senior director of campaigns and public affairs at Humane Society International/UK, the animal protection organisation, said: “Animals have lost a true champion in Parliament today.
“We’re grateful to Lord Goldsmith for everything he’s done as a minister to protect animals and the environment.
“We hope this loss serves as a major wake-up call for the Prime Minister that there are only so many broken promises the country, and his own Party, will take.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
