TORY peer Zac Goldsmith today accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of being “simply uninterested” in climate change as he resigned as Foreign Office minister.

The Boris Johnson ally was among 10 Conservatives and the only serving minister the Commons privileges committee said was part of a campaign to undermine its inquiry into the former PM’s partygate lies.

Mr Sunak said he resigned after refusing to apologise for his comments about the cross-party committee which were “incompatible with his position as a minister.

“He obviously has chosen to take a different course, I accept that,” the PM added.

The committee had criticised Lord Goldsmith for retweeting a tweet which called the inquiry “a witch hunt and kangaroo court” on June 9, with the message: “Exactly this. There was only ever going to be one outcome and the evidence was totally irrelevant to it.”

But in his scathing two-page resignation letter, he wrote: “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.

“This government’s apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced makes continuing in my current role untenable.”

He cited Mr Sunak’s decision to attend the annual networking party hosted by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch — at which Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was also present — instead of a climate finance summit in Paris as evidence Mr Sunak did not care about global warming.

“With great reluctance I am therefore stepping down as a minister in order to focus my energy where it can be more useful.”

Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon said: “The Conservatives are in disarray — with mortgages soaring, NHS waiting lists rocketing, and in their own words: ‘apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we face’."

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 the committee report on Thursday.

Sarah Olney, the party’s Treasury spokeswoman, said: “This Conservative chaos is neverending.

“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.”