Jacob Rees-Mogg, who recently said he was against abortion even for pregnancies resulting from rape, has admitted that his investment firm profits from pills used in abortions.

Mr Rees-Mogg, a devout Catholic who has been touted as a possible replacement for Theresa May as leader of the Conservatives, defended his fund, Somerset Capital Management’s £5m investment in an Indonesian company called Kalbe Farma.

Mr Rees-Mogg told the Sunday Mirror: “It would be wrong to pretend that I like it but the world is not always what you want it to be.

“Kalbe Farma obeys Indonesian law so it’s a legitimate investment and there’s no hypocrisy. The law in Indonesia would satisfy the Vatican.”

Mr Rees Mogg does not have any of his own personal money invested in the fund, and has not personally managed investments since he became an MP in 2010.

Kalbe Farme produces and markets pills that are used to treat stomach ulcers but they are widely known to trigger terminations and in Indonesia, where abortions are illegal and carried out in black market clinics, they are commonly used for this purpose.

Mr Rees-Mogg added: “I don’t manage the funds and haven’t done so since I became an MP. But the funds have to be run in accordance with the requirements of the investors and not according to my religious beliefs.

“This is not something I would wish to invest in personally but you have a duty as an investment manager not to impose constraints on investors.”

Mr Rees-Mogg accepted he did profit “in a very roundabout way”.

He went on: “This company does not procure the abortion of babies. It’s not my money in these investments and I profit from the total amount of client money we hold, not the investments we make.”

Mr Rees-Mogg recently told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that “life begins at the point of conception” and was against abortion in all cases, but accepted his views were not “the law of the land”.