Mr Marshall also told MPs that soldiers were put at risk to facilitate the evacuation of animals from the Nowzad shelter following a request from Mr Johnson, an allegation that Pen Farthing, Nowzad’s founder, denies.

Earlier this year Sir Philip Barton, the Foreign Office’s permanent under-secretary, told the foreign affairs committee that Mr Casey had not received any correspondence referring to any intervention by the Prime Minister in the evacuation from the country of animals and staff from the charity.

It was later revealed that Mr Casey was seen to have asked an official “to seek clear guidance for us from No 10 as soon as possible on what they would like us to do” regarding the situation. 

Sir Philip later wrote to Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, to apologise after previously revealed emails showed Mr Casey had received correspondence.

Ms Stewart said that she considered letters the committee received from Sir Philip in January and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, a Foreign Office minister, in February “to be misleading in claiming that Nowzad staff were included by officials in the potential cohorts to be considered for evacuation if space became available under LOTR”.

She said that while this was “factually accurate, from what I heard and saw, Nowzad staff were included as a late addition only in response to this ‘PM decision’. This occurred against the previous judgement [sic] of officials”.