Sue Gray says investigating No 10 behaviour during lockdown was ‘heartbreaking’
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Sue Gray has revealed her “heartbreak” after investigating the behaviour in Whitehall during partygate, in her first interview since penning the report.
Ms Gray, now the chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer, was the senior civil servant charged with investigating the scandal – with her report ultimately contributing to Boris Johnson resigning as prime minister.
Speaking about her experience investigating the lockdown parties and writing the report, Ms Gray said: “It was heartbreaking, really, to see the behaviour during ‘partygate’.
“That wouldn’t have happened a few years ago. The whole culture just became very informal.”
The report found that there were “failings of leadership and judgement” in Downing Street, and that “senior leadership” had to “bear responsibility” for No 10 culture during the pandemic.
Among other findings, she wrote that she was made aware of “multiple examples of a lack of respect and poor treatment of security and cleaning staff”, which she described as “unacceptable”.
Ms Gray, 66, was interviewed for a biography of Sir Keir written by Tom Baldwin, who was given access to the Labour leader and several of his most senior advisers.
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Her move from the civil service and her role as partygate investigator to join Labour’s top team last March sparked anger in the Conservative Party, with Government figures urging Acoba, the Whitehall appointments watchdog, to impose a cooling-off period of at least a year.
But despite saying it “shared some of the concerns” over a potential risk to the Civil Service’s integrity, the committee cleared Ms Gray to start as the Labour leader’s chief of staff after just six months.
The book, which is being serialised in The Times ahead of being published at the end of this month, also revealed that Ms Gray is drawing up plans for an independent Ethics Commission.
The new body will oversee public appointments and the award of peerages, as well as enforcing a stronger ministerial code.
Appearing to draw a line under the partygate investigation and the circumstances of her Whitehall exit, Ms Gray said: “It’s really important to me to say loud and clear that I love the civil service.”
She added: “The majority of them are absolutely people with the right values, they live by their values and they’re in public service for those values”.
Looking ahead to the general election and the chance to re-enter Whitehall as part of a Labour administration, she said that Whitehall “will try and mould the new government and ministers to its way of working.
“What I’m trying to do now in opposition is establish our way of working so we can walk in and start delivering … Even so, there’ll be some departments who struggle with that.”
