Nus Ghani: No action after Tory Islamophobia sacking probe

Rishi Sunak is taking no action against Tory MP Mark Spencer, after an inquiry failed to determine whether he had told a colleague her Muslim faith was a factor in her sacking.

Nus Ghani claimed she was told it was "raised as an issue" when she lost her ministerial job in a reshuffle in 2020.

Mr Spencer identified himself as the person Ms Ghani was referring to, but denied making the comments.

A probe said he had not broken ministerial rules.

However, the PM's ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus criticised Mr Spencer's handling of Ms Ghani's allegations and said lessons could be learned from the episode.

In a written response, Rishi Sunak said: "In the absence of clear evidence, it would not be right to take further action."

He said he took seriously "the need to treat others with respect and to avoid any suggestion of prejudice".

But he added that he had spoken to Mr Spencer and Ms Ghani and encouraged them both to "pull together in the finest tradition of public service".

Ms Ghani, a minister at the business department since last September, said the "sorry episode" had "only been bearable due to the support of so many Conservative colleagues".

"There is no criticism or doubt expressed regarding my version of events," she said of Sir Laurie's report, adding that Mr Spencer - now an environment minister - would have to explain the report's criticism of his "shortcomings".

Tory colleague Baroness Warsi said Ms Ghani felt "unsupported" over how her allegations were handled, and it had made her question her future in politics.

The peer, who made history as the first Muslim woman cabinet minister, told BBC Radio 4's PM there were "many anomalies" in the inquiry, and she didn't accept it was "one person's word against the other".

Ms Ghani's allegations centre on a reshuffle in 2020 during Boris Johnson's tenure as prime minister, during which she lost her ministerial post at the transport department.

She later told the Sunday Times that, after she had asked for an explanation, she was told her "'Muslimness' was raised as an 'issue', that my 'Muslim women minister' status was making colleagues uncomfortable".

She did not identify who had told her this - but Mr Spencer, who was then Tory chief whip, in charge of party discipline, tweeted that Ms Ghani was referring to him, but her claims were "completely false".

It triggered an inquiry into the claims in January 2022, initially led by Mr Johnson's ethics adviser Lord Geidt and then subsequently taken on by Sir Laurie Magnus.

In a report published on Thursday, Sir Laurie said Ms Ghani and Mr Spencer had "firm but very different recollections" of what he had told her in meetings.

The "differing evidence" presented, he added, meant he could not conclude with "sufficient confidence what was or was not said".

Sir Laurie added that advisers who were present at the time of Ms Ghani's sacking, and interviewed during the probe, said they did not hear conversations in which her faith was discussed.

He therefore concluded that there was not enough evidence to show Mr Spencer had broken rules that say ministers must be professional in their dealings with colleagues.

He criticised "shortcomings" in Mr Spencer's conduct after the claims emerged, including failing to mention a March 2020 meeting he had with Ms Ghani ahead of a meeting with Mr Johnson that year to discuss the claims.

Sir Laurie said Mr Spencer "has indicated that the omission was an oversight" - but it was "not helpful".

The adviser also said he should have "taken more care" before tweeting, inaccurately, that Ms Ghani's claims had been dismissed during a separate investigation into Islamophobia within the Conservative Party by an academic.

Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner said: "It's taken three years for a broken system to reach this unsatisfactory conclusion.

"Rishi Sunak has kept the rotten, toothless ethics regime of his predecessors and failed to set a standard that the public would expect.

"After all the denials, Mark Spencer was found to have misled the former prime minister and the public but still considered fit to be a minister by Rishi Sunak."