By Jessica Frank-Keyes
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer should publish any WhatsApp messages with Sue Gray ahead of her becoming his chief of staff, a Conservative minister has said.
Starmer should publish his messages with the civil servant and partygate investigator to clear up questions about her move to the senior role, the Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said.
It comes as a fresh Opinium poll for the Observer indicated just 23 per cent of voters believed the Conservative Party had the UK’s best interests at heart, compared to 41 per cent for Labour.
Speaking on the Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme on Sky News, Heaton-Harris said Gray was someone of “integrity” and the Labour leader could “clear up” any concerns.
He said: “This is where Keir can help out his new chief of staff by just publishing all the messages and things he might have had with her at that point in time.
“I’ve dealt with Sue Gray in the Northern Ireland Office as a civil servant. I see her as a woman of integrity as well. So I have no issue with that.
“I think Keir can clear this up in seconds by saying this is what we talked about at that time, there’s nothing to see here.”
Gray quit her post at the levelling up department last week, it emerged, as it was revealed she had been appointed to the Labour Party role.
But opponents have suggested the move risks undermining civil service impartiality rules, after Gray was responsible for a fact-finding report into the partygate scandal ahead of a Met Police investigation into lockdown-busting gatherings which saw then-PM Boris Johnson and then-chancellor Rishi Sunak fined.
The government watchdog on appointments – the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) – is expected to be informed by Gray when conversations with Labour began, the BBC reported.
ACOBA can provide advice, including recommending a waiting period before starting a new role – but cannot block appointments. Labour has said it will abide by any recommendations.
Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News: “Sue Gray is a woman of exceptional talent, abilities, incredibly high calibre, and in the same way in which senior business people are now supporting the Labour Party… I think it shows how seriously people are taking the prospect of Keir Starmer as prime minister and a Labour government.”
The shadow work and pensions secretary added: “In turn, in making this appointment, I think it reveals how seriously Keir Starmer is taking our preparations for government should the British people put their trust in us at the next general election.”
He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg Gray was “always going to be on the list” to fill the vacancy and said he had not been “privy” to conversations between Labour and the civil servant, or HR decisions in the party.
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