Animal Airlift: Ministers Pressed Over Diff Erence Between Pm's Claim And Foreign Office Emails

Labour has called on the defence secretary to explain how he c ould reconcile new Foreign Office emails that said Boris Johnson authorised a controversial airlift of animals from Kabul with his assertion before MPs this week that he had not.

- Dan Sabbagh

A letter sent by John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, pressed Ben Wallace on the matter just hours after peers had demanded a similar explanation from the Foreign Office minister Zac Goldsmith, who in a statement to the Lords in December also denied the prime minister had approved the rescue.

In the correspondence, Healey asked Wallace “how do you square” the Foreign Office emails released this week with “the evidence you gave to the foreign affairs select committee” ? He questioned again whether Johnson had “authorised the evacuation” of animals in the care of Paul “Pen” Farthing’s Nowzad charity.

The defence secretary has repeatedly denied he was ordered by No 10 to allow Farthing’s evacuation flight to proceed. On Tuesday, Wallace told MPs on the select committee : “At no stage, at any stage, did the prime minister ask me to make a way for those pets. Not at all. Never.”