Testifying to MPs at parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.

Robbins said he had been asked not to mention the idea to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time.

Robbins described the conversations as part of more general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts.