"Boris knew about the visit," Patel said. "The point is that the Foreign Office did know about this, Boris knew about [the trip]. It is not on, it is not on at all.

"I went out there, I paid for it. And there is nothing else to this. It is quite extraordinary. It is for the Foreign Office to go away and explain themselves."

Tensions have been strained between the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development after Johnson appeared to call for Patel's department to be absorbed into his own. She told BuzzFeed News last month: "DFID is an independent department."

