David Cameron’s rhetoric on climate change is a “pretence”, Clive Lewis has said following confirmation the prime minister will scrap the role of climate change envoy.

Cameron said he has “no plans to appoint a new envoy on climate change” in a written answer to the Norwich South MP. The post was previously occupied by Lord Greg Barker in September 2014, but he stepped down from the post last year.

Lewis said the vacancy demonstrated the Prime Minister’s poor record on the environment.

“The prime minister promised the greenest government ever but he is axing carbon capture, cutting energy efficiency, blocking wind power, threatening the solar industry and selling off the green bank.

“Now he’s giving up even the pretence of leading the battle against climate change, by abolishing the post of his personal climate change envoy only 18 months after creating it – a decision that the government didn’t even announce, in the hope that no one would notice.”

The vacancy comes after the Paris agreement, which was agreed late last year at the UN Climate Summit, saw almost 200 countries sign up to curbing their emissions. The agreement requires ongoing work from the Government to implement it.

Last year Lewis wrote with fellow Labour MP Barry Gardiner that the Government were “unleashing the biggest and most systematic assault on environment policy in decades”, urging members to pressure the Government to change tack.