Boris Johnson still has questions to answer over the appointment of Chris Pincher as Conservative deputy chief whip, Labour has said, as a minister said it was possible the prime minister knew of general concerns about the MP’s behaviour.
Johnson faces a backlash for promoting Pincher despite what staffers say were warnings about sexual misconduct by him.
Pincher resigned from his whips role following allegations he groped two men in a London club, and he has also been suspended as a Tory MP.
Jenny Chapman, a Labour peer and shadow Brexit minister, said it remained unclear what Johnson knew when he appointed Pincher, a party ally, to his role in February.
“We want to know who knew what and when and why those decisions were made the way they were,” she told BBC One’s Breakfast. “I don’t think anybody in Westminster believes that Boris Johnson did not know about the allegations about Mr Pincher.”
Speaking later to the same programme on behalf of the government, the children and families minister, Will Quince, said he was not going to “comment on speculation, gossip or rumour”.
He said: “But I will say is this: I anticipated this question and I spoke to No 10 both yesterday and this morning, and I asked firmly and clearly for an explanation as to what had happened, and I have been given a categorical assurance that the prime minister was not aware of any specific allegation or complaint made against the deputy chief whip, Chris Pincher.”
Questioned on his use of “specific“, a formulation used by other ministers, and whether this meant Johnson might have known about broader claims of Pincher’s alleged misdeeds, Quince said he could not rule this out.
“The answer to that is, I don’t know, and I haven’t asked those questions,” he said.
Asked why he had not done so, Quince said: “You’re talking about gossip and rumour. You have to have a specific allegation in order to take action.
“No professional organisation in the country takes action against someone based on generality or indeed rumour. That’s why it’s so important we create an environment where people feel that they are able to come forward and make complaints of this nature.”
Dissatisfaction among Tory MPs with Johnson over yet another scandal comes at a perilous time for the PM, as his backbenchers prepare to vote for a new executive for the party’s 1922 Committee.
Among other things, this sets the rules for challenges against Tory leaders, and an anti-Johnson contingent hopes to change this so he can face a challenge sooner. Under current rules, he is safe for a year from the last confidence vote, at the start of June.
In an earlier interview with Sky News, Quince denied he had been sent out on to the morning broadcast round as more senior ministers had declined to defend Johnson over Pincher.
“I’m certainly not going to defend the former deputy chief whip. The allegations are incredibly serious and I’m appalled by them,” he said.
“But that isn’t the case today, because I was booked in four days ago, in fact five days ago I think it was, to talk about a very important childcare announcement.”
