Sue Gray ‘Declined’ to Cooperate With Investigation Into Offer of Labour Party Job

Starmer 'confident' she did not break rules in accepting chief of staff job

Undated file photo of Sue Gray, former senior civil servant. (Gov.uk/PA)

Partygate investigator Sue Gray “declined to make representations” to an investigation into whether she broke the Civil Service Code by accepting a job as chief of staff of the Labour Party, it has emerged.

Gray—who led an investigation into allegations of parties being held in Downing Street in breach of the COVID-19 lockdown rules—accepted a job offer from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in March.

The Cabinet Office and the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACoBA) are both reviewing the timing of Gray’s resignation and her new job.

The Civil Service Code stipulates senior civil servants must wait a minimum of three months before taking up a job outside of the government.

ACoBA could recommend Gray, 65, wait up to two years to take up her new job but it does not have the power to block the appointment.

Labour has pledged to abide by any ACoBA recommendation.

In a written statement to the House of Commons, the Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office, Oliver Dowden, wrote: “On March 6 2023, Minister for the Cabinet Office and H.M. Paymaster General announced in reply to an urgent question that the Cabinet Office had been asked to look into the circumstances leading to the resignation of Sue Gray, the former Permanent Secretary for the Union and the Constitution and committed to update Parliament as appropriate.”

Dowden said: “This process has involved interviewing relevant persons to establish further details on the contact between Ms Gray and the Leader of the Opposition.”

“I can update the House that Ms Gray was given the opportunity to make representations as part of this process but chose not to do so,” he added.

Dowden said: “Separately, the Cabinet Office has made submissions to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, the independent appointments watchdog, in relation to Ms Gray’s application for advice under the business appointment rules, prior to her taking up an appointment as chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition.”

He added: “The government’s confidential assessment is in line with the usual process and ACoBA will consider evidence from a range of sources to make a recommendation on any appropriate restrictions on the appointment.”

“As set out in the business appointment rules, the aim of the rules includes avoiding any reasonable concerns that ‘a former civil servant might improperly exploit privileged access to contacts in government or sensitive information.’ The decision on any recommended restrictions on the appointment is for ACoBA,” Dowden concluded.

Starmer ‘Confident’ Gray Didn’t Break Rules

Earlier Starmer said he was “confident” Gray, a civil servant, had not broken any rules.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “There are rules that guide the actions that civil servants can take when leaving the civil service. Those are clearly set out and Acoba will make recommendations. That is the process and the expectation would be that anyone seeking to do so would follow those rules.”

On Tuesday, a Cabinet Office minister issued a written statement to the House of Commons containing an “update into the circumstances leading to the resignation of a senior civil servant.”

In March it emerged Gray had quit the civil service and had accepted a job as chief of staff to Starmer, prompting claims from Tory MPs that she was politically biased and her partygate report was tarnished.

Several reports have suggested Gray could have breached the Civil Service Code by accepting the job with Labour.

Starmer is thought to want Gray in place to help prepare his party for power should he win the next general election, which is likely to be held in 2024.

Labour leader Keir Starmer during a visit to Burnley College in East Lancashire, England, on April 4, 2023. (Danny Lawson/PA Media)

Gray’s report said some of the more junior officials who attended the rule-breaking parties “believed that their involvement in some of these events was permitted given the attendance of senior leaders.”

“The senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for this culture,” she wrote.

When the privileges committee said Boris Johnson had misled Parliament at least four times, the former prime minister said it was “surreal” and “particularly concerning” to discover they were partially relying on Gray’s findings.

Gray was asked to lead the partygate investigation after Cabinet Secretary Simon Case had to step down from the investigation after it was reported one of the parties had been held in his own office.

Johnson said: “I leave it to others to decide how much confidence may now be placed in her inquiry and in the reports that she produced.”

But the privileges committee defended its inquiry as being “not based on the Sue Gray report” but on evidence including witnesses, WhatsApps, emails, and photographs from a Downing Street photographer.

Earlier Starmer was questioned about his contacts with Gray and he told the BBC he, “had no discussions with her while she was investigating Boris Johnson whatsoever, I don’t think anyone is suggesting that’s the case.”

He said: “I’m confident she hasn’t broken any of the rules. Whenever a senior civil servant leaves the civil service there is always a process that they have to go through, that is the process she is going through, quite rightly.”

Labour Says Sue Gray Story a Diversion

Starmer claimed: “the government is trying to resurrect a story about Sue Gray, maybe because they don’t want to talk about the cost-of-living crisis, which actually is the thing that most people are most concerned about.”

Gray was the second permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office prior to her resignation earlier this year.

She had been director general of the propriety and ethics team between 2012 and 2018 and was seconded to Northern Ireland between 2018 and 2021.

Her partygate report was published in May 2022 and although it did not cause Johnson’s resignation in July, it did undermine his position prior to the Chris Pincher case.

Johnson was finally forced to step down after a string of cabinet ministers resigned, saying they had lost confidence in him.

Johnson admitted it was a “mistake” to keep Chris Pincher on as a government whip despite sexual misconduct allegations against him.