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From 34m
ago
10.00
Cabinet minister refuses to say whether Chris
Pincher could lose Tory whip by end of day
The big story this morning is about Conservative MP
Chris Pincher, who resigned from his role as deputy chief whip last night after
admitting he had “embarrassed myself and other people” following reports that
he drunkenly groped two men at the Carlton Club in Piccadilly, London, on
Wednesday.
Interviewed
on Sky News this morning, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart was unable to confirm
whether the alleged assault was being formally investigated, as Labour demanded
Pincher have the whip suspended.
Hart said
it was “early days yet” and that from the perspective of the alleged victims,
it could be “counter-productive” to rush any probe.
He said
Conservative chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris would be having “conversations”
throughout the day and that “we might be having a very different conversation
as the day goes on”.
The Cabinet
minister told Sky News:
This makes me very sad, it makes me sad for
everybody who’s been involved in these things. It’s clearly something which has
gone terribly wrong. There is a process, I think it’s important that the
process is followed.
I think
it is entirely right that the chief whip and others take a view today about
what is the appropriate course of action. Of course, if there are those who are
victims of this or who wish to raise complaint, they can do so.
Asked
whether he believed Pincher should lose the whip, Hart said he knew “what he
would like to see happen” but that the decision was not down to him.
Let’s
let today play out, let the chief whip do his duty today, and then I think we
might be having a very different conversation as the day goes on.
This is
not the first time, I fear it possibly won’t be the last. This happens in
workplaces from time to time.
Labour
said the incident showed the Tory Party was “mired in sleaze and scandal” and
questioned how Pincher could still be allowed to take the Conservative whip
given what had happened.
Labour’s
Yvette Cooper said that removing the whip from the former Conservative deputy
whip needed to be the “first step that takes place” but did not call for his
resignation as an MP.
Cooper told
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We need
to know the full truth about what has happened and what the allegations are.
But I
think that’s [removing the whip] the first step that needs to take place. And I
think the idea that the Conservatives can try and simply dismiss this is just
unacceptable.
They
have to show they take this kind of thing more seriously. Time and again Boris
Johnson just doesn’t. That is not good enough. This is about standards
in public life.
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