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Michael Gove recalled by MPs to give more evidence on bullying claims Michael Gove recalled by MPs to give more evidence on bullying claims
(35 minutes later)
Michael Gove will be called to give fresh evidence to MPs over allegations of bullying behaviour by key advisers, it has been confirmed. Michael Gove is to be recalled by the Commons education select committee to answer questions about when he was informed of allegations of bullying and intimidation by advisers in his department.
The Commons education select committee said it had decided at a meeting on Wednesday that the education secretary and the Department for Education's permanent secretary, Chris Wormald, should be recalled. Graham Stuart, the Tory chairman of the committee, confirmed that Gove and his permanent secretary Chris Wormald would be summoned to give evidence early next month.
The announcement comes weeks after Gove wrote to the cross-party group of MPs to insist he had "never been made aware" of bullying allegations, following Labour claims that he may have misled parliament. Stuart told the Guardian that Gove would be asked about the answer he gave to Ian Mearns, a Labour member of the committee, in January that he was not aware of allegations that his special advisers had acted inappropriately to civil servants.
No date has been set as yet for the new evidence session, the committee said. The Observer reported on 9 February, just over two weeks after Gove's appearance before the committee on 23 January, that a senior civil servant received a payoff of around £25,000 after a grievance procedure involving Gove's special adviser Dominic Cummings and the department's former head of communications James Frayne.
Last month, Gove was asked if he was aware of allegations of special advisers "acting inappropriately to civil servants" in his department, and replied: "No." Stuart said: "Ian Mearns asked the secretary of state specifically about whether he was aware of allegations against his own advisers and he said no and followed up with a letter categorically stating it again. The committee wishes to discuss the issues around disciplinary and grievance matters, when they would be brought to the secretary of state's attention, when they should be brought to his attention and how issues such as settlements are sorted out, who authorises them and to what amount.
Labour however suggested he must have known about an internal grievance procedure about two individuals – details of which emerged at the weekend. "The committee just wishes to examine these issues a little more carefully. I don't think anyone is suggesting that Michael Gove has been anything other than straightforward with us."
It said he appeared either to have misled parliament – in breach of the ministerial code – or to have "no control" over the actions of his advisers. Stuart said the committee was also likely to question Gove about allegations first published in the Observer on 2 February that members of his department may be behind the @toryeducation Twitter account, which has launched strong attacks on journalists.
The influential select committee then agreed to write to Gove seeking clarification of his evidence. The Observer reported that Cummings and Henry de Zoete, Gove's other special adviser, were asked in 2011 by the Tories' then head of press, Henry Macrory, to tone down the partisan nature of the account. De Zoete told the Observer: "I am not toryeducation." Cummings said: "Of course I'm not this Twitter account and never have been."
In a pre-emptive response, Gove wrote to its chair, the Tory MP Graham Stuart, "to confirm my answers to your questions of 23 January. Stuart said: "It will be up to members [of my committee] to decide which particular lines they wish to pursue. There is no concern there [about the account] as long as that [the denials] is the case. The Observer has run and run and run with this without seemingly being able to come up with any killer facts to substantiate its allegations. We'll see if anything is revealed in the session when the permanent secretary and secretary of state come before us."
"While I cannot comment on individual employment matters, I can confirm that I have never been made aware of allegations by civil servants of inappropriate actions by special advisers," he wrote. Labour's Mearns said: "The education secretary clearly has questions to answer. He says he was unaware of serious allegations of bullying and harassment regarding his close advisers; however, the ministerial code is quite clear – 'the responsibility of the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the minister who made the appointment'. Given the allegations against his advisers, the secretary of state needs to account for his adherence, or lack of it, to the ministerial code."
"It is not usual practice for ministers to be informed of individual grievances by members of staff, particularly if those grievances were not upheld.
"As such I remain confident that my evidence to the committee was correct."