Rishi Sunak will decide on Thursday whether to fire UK deputy prime minister Dominic Raab over bullying allegations, with an official report into the claims expected to be published soon.
The report by Adam Tolley KC, a prominent employment lawyer, will tackle whether Raab, who is also justice secretary, has breached the ministerial code.
One person involved in the process said that the review of Raab’s behaviour was “devastating”, while one senior government figure said the justice secretary was “toast”.
However other Tories close to Sunak said they expected the report to be less clear cut. “If this was simple, Tolley would have published this weeks ago,” said one.
Aides to Raab refused to comment on Wednesday evening other than repeating their previous lines that the minister had “behaved professionally at all times” during his time working in government.
Sunak commissioned Tolley to carry out an inquiry into Raab’s behaviour after following reports in November that the deputy prime minister was facing multiple fresh complaints of bullying behaviour across several departments as justice secretary and previously foreign secretary.
Tolley is understood to have examined eight formal complaints by officials — some involving more than one individual.
When Sunak launched the inquiry, Downing Street made clear that while Tolley would establish the facts, the prime minister was the “ultimate arbiter” of the ministerial code.
Sunak, who became prime minister in October, has already had Sir Gavin Williamson resign from his cabinet post over bullying allegations. Then in January he sacked Nadhim Zahawi as chair of the Conservative party after his ethics adviser found he had committed “serious breaches” of the ministerial code by failing to be transparent about his tax affairs.
Earlier this year the Financial Times spoke to five senior civil servants who had worked with Raab, of which four said they believed his conduct involved bullying. “He gets uncontrollably angry at minor things,” said one.
Three current or former permanent secretaries — the top civil servants at government departments — gave evidence to Tolley’s probe, according to people briefed on the investigation.
Lord Simon McDonald, who was permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office when Raab was foreign secretary, told Times Radio in November that “many [civil servants] were scared to go into his office”.
Former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Raab supporter, has accused the complainants of being “snowflakes”.
Raab is paying for his own legal advice during the inquiry, according to an update to the ministerial register published on Wednesday, which read the minister “has engaged lawyers at his own expense”.
