South Swindon MP Sir Robert Buckland does not regret switching support from Rishi Sunak to Liz Truss during the earlier Conservative election campaign.

But he is very happy that Mr Sunak has now been selected as leader of the Conservative Party by the party’s MPs and by extension will be the country’s next Prime Minister.

Having expressed his support for Mr Sunak this morning in a Daily Telegraph article, Sir Robert said: “I’m glad it’s done. It’s a clear decision.

“Rishi has had a lot of scrutiny especially during the previous leadership campaign and he’s well-known. He was the chancellor during the Covid-19 pandemic and was in charge of saving the economy and providing a lot of help to people throughout that time."

Sir Robert had initially expressed support for Mr Sunak at the start of the leadership campaign in July, after Boris Johnson had announced his resignation.

But in August, he switched his support to Liz Truss, who had begun to be seen as the more likely to win the contest with Conservative party members.

Under Ms Truss’s short-lived government he kept his cabinet post as Secretary of State for Wales.

But he said he had no regrets about changing his support, and said: “I’ve said this over and over again – it was a matter of policy, not personality.

“I got into politics to deal with policy.”

Sir Robert’s concern was the mooted creation of a new Bill of Rights, seen as a flagship policy of his successor as Justice Secretary Dominic Raab.

Sir Robert said he was worried about the plan to “elevate certain parts of our existing statute law” to become “rights” and that risked politicising the courts.

In his Daily Telegraph article throwing his support behind Mr Sunak published this morning, he said: “In the summer, after a difference of view on the proposed Bill of Rights, I parted company with Rishi’s campaign.

"I decided then that it was better to be open about my differences and to declare my change of opinion, rather than conceal it from public scrutiny.”

Liz Truss dropped the bill of rights proposal early into her 44-day ministry.

Now, Sir Robert said unity is vital: “This is a chance for the party’s MPs to come together and work together.

“We should remember what we are for and focus on the public. When we do that it makes us an effective force, and we have to deal with things like the cost of living and mortgages and those things matter.

“This is going to be a tough winter and what we need is certainty, and we have that. An election now would undo that.”