Former Tory chair calls on Dominic Raab to step
aside during inquiry
Jake Berry’s comments will heap pressure on deputy PM
amid investigation into bullying allegations
Peter
Walker and Pippa Crerar
Sat 4 Feb
2023 06.00 GMT
A former
cabinet minister and Conservative party chair has become the most senior Tory
MP yet to call for Dominic Raab to step aside from his ministerial roles while
he is investigated over multiple allegations of bullying and intimidating
behaviour.
Jake Berry,
who was party chair and minister without portfolio in Liz Truss’s cabinet, said
it would be “very bizarre” if someone in a similar position to Raab in any
other workplace remained in their role amid such claims.
Downing
Street declined on Friday to say whether Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, had
been informed of complaints about Raab before Rishi Sunak made him justice
secretary and deputy prime minister, placing yet more scrutiny on what the
prime minister knew at the time.
Sunak’s
spokesperson reiterated the heavily caveated formula that the prime minister
was “not aware at the time of appointment of any formal complaints” about Raab,
declining to say anything else given an ongoing investigation into the
allegations.
Berry told
BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster that it would be “a big help” to Sunak if he
was able to straightforwardly suspend a minister who was being investigated, as
happens in the private sector.
Asked if he
believed Sunak should suspend Raab now, Berry said: “When you have 24
allegations outstanding against you – I read in the newspaper there are 24 – it
would be very bizarre if you had someone in any other workplace who wasn’t
suspended pending that investigation. MPs and ministers are not some form of
special human being – I think they should just be treated like anyone else is
in their workplace.”
Berry’s
comments place yet more pressure on Sunak to act, given the inquiry he ordered
by Adam Tolley KC is seen as unlikely to be concluded for another couple of
weeks at the earliest.
Sunak has
faced criticism for his failure to act earlier in dismissing Nadhim Zahawi, the
most recent Conservative party chair, after it emerged he received a tax
penalty from HMRC when he was chancellor, and also faced scrutiny over whether
or not he knew about Zahawi’s situation before appointing him.
On Friday,
Downing Street refused to comment on a report in the Times that Case, the most
senior civil servant in government, had been personally told of a written
complaint about Raab during his earlier stint in the justice ministry months
before Sunak gave him the post again.
Sunak’s
spokesperson confirmed that in general terms, a written statement made, for
example, to a line manager, an HR representative or a permanent secretary would
be counted as a formal complaint. However, he refused to say if Case had been
informed about the concerns over Raab, and if so whether he had passed this
information to Sunak before the prime minister named his government in October,
citing Tolley’s ongoing work.
“We’re not
going to get into the process of appointments or the advice that the PM
receives, or does not receive,” the spokesperson said, adding that Sunak had
full confidence in Case.
At least 24
officials are involved in the complaints about Raab’s behaviour. He vehemently
denies any wrongdoing.
In another
allegation, the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller has claimed Raab was abusive
to her and a BBC staffer after they appeared together on Radio 4’s Today
programme in 2016. Writing in the Independent, Miller said that when they were
together in a lift after the broadcast, Raab “stared at me and said: ‘I can’t
make up my mind if you’re naive, got too much money or just stupid.’”
As they
left the building, Miller said, Raab reacted furiously to a young staff member
who said there was no car arranged for him, shouting: “Go get me a fucking
car.”
A source
close to Raab told the paper the claims by Miller were “baseless and
malicious”.
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