THE resignation of Chris Skidmore over the Government’s energy plans is appalling, according to former Deputy Prime Minister Damian Green

He told GB News: “I’m pretty appalled by that. I’m disappointed that Chris has done that. His seat’s abolished, he was standing down anyway. This is a wholly unnecessary by-election.

“The Prime Minister will be entirely justified to feel very, very cross about this and all his constituency workers who presumably supported him for years.”

In a discussion with Camilla Tominey, he also said that ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells should hand back her CBE.

He said: “I personally think that it would be to her credit if she voluntarily handed it back.

“I think Ed Davey has got a lot of questions to answer. As an ex-minister, I was thinking, ‘well, what would I have done?’

“I’d like to think that if I’d been told hundreds of sub-postmasters have suddenly become criminals, I would have asked questions about that, because all my experience of sub-postmasters is that they are the definition of pillars of the community.

“So the idea that hundreds of them suddenly were indulging in fraud and criminality was always an extraordinary accusation.

“Ed Davey has got very serious questions to answer on this. I think he’s in big trouble.”

On the Government’s Rwanda deportation plan, he said: “I would ask Bill Cash and Mark Francois to stop trying to amend the legislation and get behind the Prime Minister.”