Damian Green was asked to apologise on behalf of the Government to victims of sexual assault as he stood in for Theresa May during Prime Minister’s Questions today.
The Secretary of State - who is under investigation over allegations that extreme pornography was found on his office computer - was pressed to say sorry to all those affected by Westminster’s harassment scandal by Labour MP John Mann, who has led a campaign to expose sexual wrongdoing in politics.
The stand-off came as the London Evening Standard published further allegations against Green, who has denied any wrongdoing. The newspaper claims that the embattled minister offered a job to a writer while making sexual advances towards her.
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Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry started PMQs “with a teaser question about conduct that clearly unsettled Green because he thought she might devote all six questions to a topic that would take us on to the subject of touching knees and watching porn on office computers”, said The Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow.
Green was then left “red-faced” once again, reports The Sun, after Mann said women were still afraid to come forward to report allegations because they feared not being believed and the publicity involved, and because of the culture of denial in Westminster.
The Labour MP offered Green the chance to apologise on behalf of the Government.
Green failed to do so, instead replying: “I absolutely agree that both this place as an institution and all of the political parties need to improve complaints procedures and other aspects of the culture of politics to make sure that young men or young women who are interested in politics do not in any way feel deterred from playing an active role in it.”
