Boris Johnson’s plan for a £200million new national flagship, dubbed a new royal yacht, has been branded ‘silly populist nonsense’ by former chancellor Ken Clarke.

The plans for the successor to the Royal Yacht Britannia show that some in Downing Street believe there is ‘free money’, the Tory peer said.

Lord Clarke told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the new vessel is a ‘complete waste of time, silly populist nonsense’ and ‘we have no money’ for it.

Current figures show Government borrowing stood at £24.3billion in May, which is the second-highest figure for the month on record.

The figure – although down from £43.8billion a year earlier at the height of the pandemic – is still £18.9billion more than in 2019.

Lord Clarke said: ‘It’s a symptom – £200 million is not going to cause problems, but it shows there are people in No 10 who just think there’s free money and who think that waving a Union Jack and sending yachts and aircraft carriers around the world shows what a great power we are.’

But Health Secretary Matt Hancock today insisted that the vessel will pay for itself by boosting trade with countries where it’s able to dock.

It will be paid for out of the defence budget despite not being a warship.

It will be the first national flagship since Britannia, which was decommissioned in 1997, but the new vessel will be a ship rather than a luxury yacht.

A name for the vessel has not been announced, but the Prime Minister has faced pressure from campaigners and Tory MPs to name it after the Duke of Edinburgh, who played a role in designing Britannia.

Speaking on the Today programme, Mr Hancock said that the UK ‘should be getting out there and trading with the world’.

He said: ‘The amount of investment that you can get in from the rest of the world by showing the best of Britain in harbours the world over is very, very significant.

‘And so I think that a royal yacht is a great idea and I’m very positive about it, because I think it will more than pay for itself many, many times over.’

Mr Johnson has said the new ship will enter service in four years and will give British businesses a new global platform.

It is aimed at boosting the Prime Minister’s post-Brexit vision of the UK as a global trading nation.

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