THE Scottish Tories are yet to speak out about Matt Hancock breaching Covid-19 guidelines by kissing a close aide in his ministerial office.
The UK Government Health Secretary, who is married with three children, was caught on CCTV embracing Gina Coladangelo.
Coladangelo, who is married to the founder of the retailer Oliver Bonas, Oliver Tress, is a friend of Hancock’s from their days together at Oxford University and was appointed to the DHSC last year.
She was initially taken on as an unpaid adviser on a six-month contract in March 2020, before being appointed as a non-executive director at the department.
The Metropolitan Police said it was not investigating any offences, which allegedly took place last month, because “as a matter of course the MPS is not investigating Covid related issues retrospectively”.
One Tory MP has now called for Hancock to resign, while former minister Esther McVey said she believes pressure will continue to mount up on the Health Secretary.
North Norfolk Tory MP Duncan Baker is understood to be the first of his party’s representatives to call on Hancock to go.
He told his local newspaper the Eastern Daily Press: “In my view people in high public office and great positions of responsibility should act with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role.
“Matt Hancock, on a number of measures, has fallen short of that. As an MP who is a devoted family man, married for 12 years with a wonderful wife and children, standards and integrity matter to me.
“I will not in any shape condone this behaviour and I have in the strongest possible terms told the Government what I think.”
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Meanwhile Douglas Ross’s Scottish Conservatives are yet to speak out. They have been contacted for comment.
Before becoming Scottish Tory leader, Ross became the first UK Government minister to resign over the Dominic Cummings Barnard Castle scandal.
Moray MP Ross stepped down from his position in the Scotland Office after Cummings travelled to Durham during the coronavirus lockdown.
Ross said while Cummings’s “intentions may have been well meaning”, he couldn’t tell constituents who had been unable to visit sick relatives that “they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the Government was right”.
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