Theresa May’s deputy in fight for his future, while Amber Rudd says MPs guilty of abuse should be thrown out of parliament

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, has called for MPs guilty of harassment or abuse to face potential dismissal from parliament, as Theresa May’s deputy, Damian Green, battled for his political future amid calls for him to step aside.

With seven Conservative MPs now facing various investigations or having resigned as ministers, and more allegations swirling, May faces the theoretical possibility of a series of byelections that could sink her precarious minority government.

Two of Green’s fellow Tory MPs said he should give up his ministerial role while he is being investigated for alleged inappropriate behaviour towards a young activist, alongside claims “extreme” pornography was found on one of his Commons computers. Green has strongly denied the claims.



The latter allegation was made by a former senior Met police officer, Bob Quick, who Green has called “a tainted and untrustworthy source”, setting up a potentially destructive battle of words between the pair.

Play Video 1:27 Amber Rudd: Cabinet Office will investigate Damian Green allegations – video

One Conservative backbencher, Heidi Allen, said that someone facing such accusations “in a regular industry” would step aside from their role during an investigation.

“In … the sort of companies I used to work in, that would be completely normal,” she told ITV’s Peston on Sunday, telling Green: “If you’re innocent and you have nothing to worry about, then let the process take its natural course, and the right will come out in the end.”

Another Tory MP, Anna Soubry, said Green should have stepped aside when the claims connected to the activist were first made, which would have meant the later allegations could have been considered as part of that.

“This would have formed part of that inquiry,” she told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show. “Instead we are pretty much having trial by the newspapers. This is not acceptable.”

Rudd said she would encourage a review of harassment in Westminster, which would see May hold talks with fellow party leaders on Monday, to look into a way to dismiss tainted MPs.

“I think that what we need to do is to look at the whole issue. There needs to be a procedure put in place as soon as possible,” she told Sky News.

In a separate interview, Rudd told Marr she believed it was time for wrongdoers to be drummed out of parliament. She said: “I think it is something that will take place in terms of clearing out Westminster of that sort of behaviour, and I think Westminster afterwards – including the government – will be better for it.”

Adding to the pressure on Green, whose title of first secretary of state makes him May’s effective deputy, Rudd said the pornography allegations would form part of the inquiry.

“I know that the Cabinet Office is going to be looking at this tomorrow, along with the wider inquiry about Damian, and I do think that we shouldn’t rush to allege anything until that inquiry has taken place,” she told Marr.

But she defended Green’s decision to stay on as a minister. She told Sky: “He strongly denies these allegations. Let’s give him time, and the inquiry time, to make sure that he has the opportunity to put it straight what he believes was the case.”

The investigation into Green began earlier in the week when he was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a young Conservative activist, Kate Maltby.



Bob Quick.

The Sunday Times also reported that Quick, a former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, alleged “extreme” pornographic material was found on one of Green’s Commons computers during an inquiry into government leaks in 2008.

Quick has denied leaking his statement to the Sunday Times, but said he stood by his claims and had contacted the Cabinet Office to assist with the inquiry.

Also on Sunday it was announced that two more MPs would be investigated by a new Conservative party internal disciplinary system.

Dan Poulter, MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, and Daniel Kawczynski, who represents Shrewsbury, have been referred after complaints were made against them. Both deny any wrongdoing.



The complaint about Poulter comes from another Tory MP, Andrew Bridgen, who wrote in the Sunday Times that he had chosen to “call out the alleged inappropriate behaviour”. Bridgen said he had complained to Conservative whips in 2010.

The investigation of Kawczynski follows claims by Channel 4 News that the MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham sought to pressure a female researcher for another Tory MP to go on a date with a wealthy friend, who had seen her in parliament.

It means that three MPs will now be investigated under the process, announced by Theresa May last week. Stephen Crabb, the former pensions secretary, was referred on Saturday after admitting he sent suggestive text messages to a teenager.

Another Tory MP, Charlie Elphicke, has been suspended by the party following serious allegations that have been passed to the police.

The defence secretary, Michael Fallon, resigned last week amid claims of inappropriate behaviour, while the junior trade minister Mark Garnier is, like Green, being investigated by the Cabinet Office.

There is pressure on May to explain whether she had been told about any of the claims earlier, and what her whips might have told her.

Last week the PM promoted her chief whip, Gavin Williamson, to replace Fallon. Her chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, spent two years as a whip while in parliament.

However, Rudd rejected the idea that the Tory whips’ office kept a dossier of MPs’ misdeeds that it used to enforce discipline.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Conservative MP for Dover, Charlie Elphicke. Photograph: Rick Findler/PA

“I was a whip myself and I don’t recognise some of those more lurid stories that are told about the sort of things whips knew and did,” said Rudd, who was a junior whip briefly in 2013 and 2014. “That isn’t the parliament I know. That isn’t the whips’ office where I worked.”