Rishi Sunak knew that Sir Gavin Williamson was the subject of a complaint for allegedly bullying a colleague, when he appointed him to his cabinet, a senior minister has said.
Mr Williamson is facing an investigation over a series of abusive messages he sent to the then Tory chief whip over the Queen's funeral. He allegedly accused Wendy Morton of 'punishing' senior MPs out of favour with Liz Truss' government.
The Sunday Times, who have reported the messages, say they conclude with: “Well let’s see how many more times you f*** us all over. There is a price for everything". At the time of the messages, Mr Williamson was a backbencher but the Prime Minister has since appointed him as Minister of State without Portfolio.
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Former education secretary Mr Williamson told The Sunday Times: “I of course regret getting frustrated about the way colleagues and I felt we were being treated. I am happy to speak with Wendy and I hope to work positively with her in the future as I have in the past.”
Oliver Dowden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, confirmed that Mr Sunak had been aware of the complaint when he made Mr Williamson a Cabinet Office minister but said he had not known the details of the exchanges. Mr Dowden told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “As you have seen from the former chairman Jake Berry, he says that he highlighted that to the Prime Minister. But in terms of the specific allegations, the specific exchange, the Prime Minister wasn’t aware of it until last night.”
Asked if Mr Sunak had confidence in Mr Williamson, Mr Dowden said: “Of course the Prime Minister continues to have confidence in Gavin Williamson.”
Labour’s shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband warned against a “cover-up” or a “whitewash” over the allegations. He told Sky News: “These are incredibly serious issues and I think it really calls into question Rishi Sunak’s judgment and the way he made decisions about his Cabinet.
“We already know about the whole Suella Braverman issue: being reappointed six days after she resigned. It was very noticeable… that Oliver Dowden couldn’t deny that Rishi Sunak knew about those issues to do with potential bullying against Wendy Morton, the chief whip, by Gavin Williamson and yet he reappointed him.
“What it says is that Rishi Sunak was making decisions simply in his own narrow short-term interest as far as the Conservative Party leadership was concerned, not the national interest, and there needs to be an urgent independent investigation into exactly what happened. We can’t have a cover-up, we can’t have a whitewash here.
“What did Rishi Sunak know? When did he know it? What did Gavin Williamson do and what are the implications of that?”
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