‘You shouldn’t have bullies in government’: Ex-Home Office civil service boss condemns PM’s response to Priti Patel report

Sir David Normington says: ‘For the first time as far as I can remember we have a prime minister who doesn’t seem willing to stand up for high standards in public life’

A former top civil servant at the Home Office has launched a scathing attack on Boris Johnson’s “concerning” response to an inquiry into Priti Patel’s behaviour at the department, telling the prime minister: “You shouldn’t have bullies in government”.

The comments from Sir David Normington came after Mr Johnson refused to sack the home secretary and overruled an independent report that found she had bullied staff and breached the ministerial code – provoking fury from civil service unions.

His decision to stand by the home secretary – even instructing Tory MPs to form a “square” around the embattled minister – also resulted in the resignation of Sir Alex Allan, who as the prime minister’s own independent standards adviser was responsible for the compiling the report.

Responding to the findings, Ms Patel said she was “absolutely sorry for the upset that has been caused”, adding: “If I have upset people, that has been completely unintentional, that was not my intention.”

But Sir David – the former permanent secretary at the Home Office from 2006 until 2011 – said: “It seems to me that there needs to be a recognition from her and the prime minister that she was found to have bullied staff, possibly in three departments, not just the Home Office, and that is completely unacceptable.

“Although it was good she apologised it wasn’t an apology for bullying – there has been no acknowledgement for her or the prime minister that she bullied, in fact the prime minister has simply put aside the findings of a report and the of independent adviser Alex Allan that she is a bully and you shouldn’t have bullies in government.”

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t think she recognises even now that she bullied and more importantly the prime minister has ignored and set aside a report that said she is a bully.

“I’m glad she apologised, but we have to put ourselves in the position of the bullied – no one has spoken up for them, some of them are junior staff who will be sitting there today thinking that their voice is not being heard and you can’t rely on the prime minister to stand up for them.”

On the findings of the report that was partially published on Friday, he added that in “all other circumstances” the prime minister would have taken action against the minister involved.

“Instead, he’s put that aside and that’s what is so concerning about this,” he said. 

“The system depends on the prime minister standing up for standards in public life and for taking action when his or her ministers breach those standards. For the first time as far as I can remember we have a prime minister who doesn’t seem willing to stand up for high standards in public life.”

Opposition parties lined up to insist that the home secretary should have been sacked in response to Sir Alex’s inquiry, which found that: “Her approach on occasions has amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying in terms of the impact felt by individuals. To that extent her behaviour has been in breach of the Ministerial Code, even if unintentionally.”

But Mr Johnson grasped at suggestions in the report that Ms Patel was responding to a lack of support from her new department and was “unaware of issues that she could otherwise have addressed” because she received no feedback about her behaviour.

Overruling Sir Alex, he said that no breach of the code had occurred and declared the matter “closed”, prompting the senior mandarin – a former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee and principal private secretary to two prime ministers – to quit his advisory role.

The Times also suggested that the prime minister had tried and failed to convince Sir Alex to water down his findings in the report, but a No 10 spokesperson said: “As you would expect, the prime minister spoke to Sir Alex Allan to further his understanding of the report. Sir Alex’s conclusions are entirely his own.”

In a statement, Downing Street said that Mr Johnson had noted Sir Alex’s advice and was reassured that “the home secretary is sorry for inadvertently upsetting those with whom she was working”, and that relations between civil servants and ministers at the Home Office were now “much improved”.

“As the arbiter of the code, having considered Sir Alex’s advice and weighing up all the factors, the prime minister’s judgement is that the ministerial code was not breached,” said No 10.