PRIME MINISTER Rishi Sunak put Grant Shapps in charge of the new Energy Security and Net Zero Department today, despite the ex-business secretary’s poor voting record on efforts to tackle climate change.

The Welwyn Hatfield MP backed an exemption for national security and defence as well as taxation and spending policies from requirements to show “due regard to environmental issues” in 2021, according to theyworkforyou.com.

The accountability website, which bases its data on official Parliamentary Hansard records, also notes that the former transport secretary helped his party colleagues defeat a move to ban the burning of vegetation in carbon-capture peat bogs in the same year.