Alun Cairns is cleared of breaking ministerial code

Former Cabinet member Alun Cairns is cleared of breaking ministerial code over claims he knew about former aide’s role in a collapsed rape trial

• Alun Cairns cleared of breaking ministerial code over claims about former aide 
• Inquiry found it’unlikely’ he had not been told about Ross England’s role in case
• MP insisted he did not know details which Mr England accused of sabotaging

A former Cabinet member was last night cleared of breaking the ministerial code over claims he knew about a former aide’s role in a collapsed rape trial.

An inquiry found it was ‘unlikely’ that Alun Cairns, the ex-Welsh secretary, had not been told something about Ross England’s role as a witness in the case.

But Mr Cairns insisted he did not know the details of the trial, and an advisor concluded there was no evidence to contradict that position.

Alun Cairns became the first Cabinet minister for a decade to resign during an election campaign when he stepped down in November

The MP resigned from the Cabinet ahead of the general election.

The position of Welsh Secretary remained vacant during the campaign, during which Mr Cairns successfully defended his Vale of Glamorgan seat.

However, Boris Johnson named Simon Hart as the new Welsh Secretary following the Conservative victory.

Meanwhile, a second inquiry found a former Tory MP did breach the ministerial code by using force against a climate change protester at a black-tie City dinner.

Britain’s new Secretary of State for Wales Simon Hart arrives to attend the first cabinet meeting since the general election 

Mark Field, who stood down from Parliament after being suspended as a Foreign Office minister, grabbed Greenpeace activist Janet Barker by the neck and forced her from the event.

The Cabinet Office investigation found that he was ‘justified in intervening to try to stop’ Ms Barker reaching the top table as protesters disrupted the beginning of then-chancellor Philip Hammond’s speech.

But the report found that, although he had to make a ‘split-second decision’, he ‘had the option’ of simply blocking her way during the incident in London’s Mansion House in June.

Alternatively he could have waited for ‘others to shepherd her out rather than pushing her by the neck out of the room and down the stairs’, the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards Sir Alex Allan wrote.

Mr Cairns became the first Cabinet minister for a decade to resign during an election campaign when he stepped down in November. 

Mr Cairns claimed he was unaware of the role played by Ross England in the collapse of a rape trial until after the story broke.

However, he was accused of ‘brazenly lying’ after BBC Wales said it had obtained a leaked email which suggested he had been made aware of the allegations as early as August last year.

Mr Cairns said he would ‘co-operate in full’ with an investigation into his actions under the Ministerial Code, adding that he was confident he would be cleared of ‘any breach or wrong doing’.

The report by Sir Alex Allan, the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministers’ interests, stated that Mr Cairns said he knew about the collapse of the trial, but that he did not know the details until they become public.

Boris Johnson (pictured in the Commons during a Brexit debate) named Simon Hart as the new Welsh Secretary on Monday

‘Mr Cairns worked closely with his special adviser, who had had conversations with Mr England and who was more likely than not to have known about Mr England’s role (as demonstrated by the 2nd August email) – though I accept that Mr Cairns’ special adviser would not necessarily have known the judge’s actual remarks,’ he wrote.

Sir Alex said the issue was whether it was ‘plausible that Mr Cairns could have been told about the collapse of the trial without inquiring or being told about the reasons, especially given that he knew Mr England was a witness’.

‘Mr Cairns’ asserted that he was not a lawyer and did not then understood the difference between an adjournment, a delay and a collapse. It seems to me that these terms are self-evident.’

He said Mr Cairns’ evidence was that he ‘would have drawn from the content of the conversation with a member of his staff that there had been difficulties with the trial’ but that the ‘member of staff had not told him that Mr England had had anything to do with it’.

Concluding, Sir Alex wrote: ‘I find it unlikely that Mr Cairns would not have been told something about Mr England’s role when he was told about the collapse.

‘But all those involved state that they had not informed Mr Cairns of Mr England’s role, and there is no direct evidence to contradict this. On that basis, I do not find that the evidence upholds the allegations of a breach of the ministerial code.’

Boris Johnson named Simon Hart as the new Welsh Secretary on Monday.

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