'No plans' for random drug tests of cabinet ministers, Downing Street says

Tory candidate for London mayor Shaun Bailey wants the capital's big companies to undertake tests on workers

Boris Johnson chairing a meeting with his cabinet 21 July, 2020 (Getty)

Downing Street has said there are "no plans" for random drug tests of cabinet ministers, after Conservative candidate for London mayor Shaun Bailey said he would urge all large employers in the capital to undertake them.

Mr Bailey has said he will ask businesses with more than 250 employees to drug-test workers and publish the results if he wins his way into City Hall in 2021.

Under his proposals, laid out in an open letter, companies would be urged to sign up to a drug-testing charter that would see them routinely test staff members for narcotics.

A Downing Street spokesman told reporters he had "not yet seen" Mr Bailey's plans.

But asked if Boris Johnson would introduce random drug tests for cabinet members, the spokesman replied: "We expect the highest levels of professionalism from everybody in government. That remains the case, but there are no plans for that."

Setting out his plans, Mr Bailey said he would publish results from companies' drug tests as part of a city-wide league table.

The candidate, who previously served as a youth worker targeting gang culture, said he believed the measure would help tackle the use of drugs more commonly seen in middle-class circles, such as cocaine.

Current working rights mean companies are obliged to ask for consent from employees before testing them for narcotics – with the measure most often deployed in sectors with direct safety requirements like transport, energy and construction.

However, Mr Bailey said the policy would be designed to preserve the anonymity of workers, instead prompting culture change among big business in the capital.

During the 2019 campaign for the Conservative leadership, a number of contenders now in the cabinet admitted to drug use earlier in their lives.

Michael Gove, now Cabinet Office minister, said that he took cocaine on "several occasions" as a young professional and Dominic Raab and Matt Hancock - now foreign secretary and health secretary - admitted smoking cannabis as students.

Mr Johnson himself has said that he attempted to snort "a white substance" while at university, but claimed that none of it went up his nose and said he did not know whether or not it was cocaine.