First secretary of state will deputise for PM while being investigated over claims of sexual impropriety

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Damian Green will deputise for Theresa May at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday despite being under investigation over allegations of sexual impropriety.

The first secretary of state, regarded as May’s de facto deputy, will stand in for the prime minister, who is visiting Jordan. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, will take him on.

Green has been chosen to fill in despite his political future hanging in the balance for several weeks while he is investigated by Sue Gray, the head of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office.

The senior civil servant has been deliberating over claims that Green harassed a young Conservative activist and downloaded pornography to a work computer. He denies both allegations.

The Cabinet Office declined to say whether the investigation had concluded or whether it would be made public when finished.

Gray’s inquiry was launched on 1 November after Kate Maltby, a Conservative activist and journalist, wrote an article claiming Green had touched her knee in 2015 and, a year later, sent her a suggestive message. Green said the claims were “untrue and deeply hurtful”.

It later emerged that pornography, allegedly of an “extreme” nature, had been found on Green’s parliamentary office computer after a police raid in 2008.

Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police commissioner between 2009 and 2011, confirmed he was briefed about the pornography but regarded it as a “side issue”. He said he regretted that its existence was in the public domain.



But Green has said his accusers had “ulterior motives”.

“I reiterate that no allegations about the presence of improper material on my parliamentary computers have ever been put to me or to the parliamentary authorities by the police,” he said at the time.



A Whitehall source confirmed to the Guardian last week that the inquiry had “run its course” and findings would be announced “sooner rather than later”.



May later defended her decision to nominate Green to stand in for her. Speaking to reporters while flying to Jordan she said: “He is the first secretary of state. He has deputised for me at prime minister’s questions before.

“Obviously, there are considerations, the continuing of these issues. But he’s the first secretary of state, he’s done prime minister’s questions before and I’m sure he’ll do a very good job.”