A fresh ethics probe must uncover why the Tory government was forced to pay a senior civil servant £370,000, Labour has said.
Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has written to ethics chief Lord Evans urging him to reopen an inquiry into Home Secretary Priti Patel’s conduct, and get answers for taxpayers.
An inquiry last year by Lord Evans' predecessor as independent investigator of ministerial standards, Sir Alex Allan, found that Ms Patel breached the ministerial code.
He said the Home Secretary was behind "behaviour that can be described as bullying" and had "not consistently met the high standards expected of her".
But Sir Alex resigned after Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the "ultimate arbiter" of the ministerial code, refused to back his findings and did not sanction Ms Patel.
She later apologised for "any upset caused" but has always denied bullying.
It followed the resignation of the Home Office’s top civil servant Sir Philip Rutnam, who accused Ms Patel of a “vicious and orchestrated briefing campaign” against him.
Sir Philip, who threatened to take Ms Patel to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal, later reached a £340,000 settlement with government, including £30,000 for his legal costs.
But Labour has said Lord Evans should now urgently review the case.
It comes after the Government was forced into a humiliating U-turn over a bid to dismantle parliament's anti-sleaze system.
MPs tried to change the standards process and let senior Tory Owen Paterson off the hook over a suspension from parliament, after the standards commissioner found he made an "egregious" breach of lobbying rules.
Mr Thomas-Symonds told the Mirror: “Yesterday we saw unprecedented moves by the Conservatives to change the rulebook to block the suspension of one of their own found to have broken the rules.
“Only days earlier, a damning standards watchdog report called for tougher rules to stamp out the crony culture of Tory Ministers breaking the rules.
“This report must not be ignored and makes an urgent case for independent review of cases of misconduct. This must include inquiry into the egregious case of Home Secretary breaking the Ministerial code through bullying– especially considering the use of £370,000 of taxpayer’s money. Yet Priti Patel has not faced any consequences for these actions.
“It’s time that that the watchdog takes a fresh look into this so that this cannot be repeated in the future and to make sure that the Home Secretary is properly held to account."
A Whitehall source underlined that Ms Patel had already faced an ethics investigation and that a separate watchdog oversaw government accounts.
"Departmental accounts are already scrutinised by the National Audit Office," the source said.
