Comments come as Tory anger grows over Labour poaching Gray to work as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff
Neil Coyle MP should be suspended from the House of Commons for five days after breaching parliament’s bullying and harassment policy, the independent expert panel says.
The IEP, which was set up to consider bullying and harrassment claims against MPs, has published a report recommending the suspension after the “foul-mouthed and drunken abuse” of another MP’s assistant.
The most striking aggravating factor [in relation to the first complaint] was the ‘power gradient’ between an MP and a junior member of staff. The most striking aggravating factor [in relation to the second one] was the racial overtone in the verbal abuse. In relation to both episodes, it was clear that very marked abuse of alcohol was at the root of events.
As to mitigating factors, it was clear that the respondent had accepted what he had done, and fully agreed that what he did was far below any acceptable level of conduct. He also acknowledged that he had been heavily abusing alcohol at the time. Since then he had stopped consuming alcohol completely, and had maintained his abstention for the year following the complaints.
Thomas described the appointment of Gray as chief of staff to Keir Starmer was “unusual” and “surprising”. He told the Today programme:
I do think this is unusual, it’s surprising. Although civil servants have crossed the aisle before – Jonathan Powell for Tony Blair, or others – I mean, it hasn’t happened before with a civil servant who was still serving of this seniority and with the public profile and career history in the deep centre of government that Sue Grey has.
He said the appointment “raises quite tricky questions for the civil service in the long term about the trust of relationship between ministers and civil servants”.
He said it was important for Gray to stress that she would not be divulging confidential information she obtained when she was in government. He told Times Radio:
Sue Gray can’t unknow what she knows. And if she does this job, I do think she needs to be very clear she’s not going to share details of the work that she did in government.
But Thomas rejected suggestions that the appointment meant Gray might have acted in a biase manner as a civil servant. Thomas said that he had worked with her, and that he had always seen her “behave entirely impartially and equally robustly with ministers and political advisers of any party”.
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