Oliver Dowden Replaces Dominic Raab As Deputy Prime Minister

Alex Chalk is the new justice secretary, as Rishi Sunak is forced to conduct a mini-reshuffle.
Hollie Adams via Getty Images

Oliver Dowden has replaced Dominic Raab as deputy prime minister, Downing Street has announced.

Raab resigned on Friday after an inquiry found he acted in an intimidating and aggressive way with officials in behaviour that could have amounted to bullying.

Dowden is currently the Cabinet Office minister and will now stand in for Rishi Sunak at PMQs when the prime minister is away.

Alex Chalk, previously a defence minister, has replaced Raab as justice secretary.

Adam Tolley KC’s investigation published on Friday concluded Raab engaged in an “abuse or misuse of power” that “undermines or humiliates”.

Sunak, who had spent the night agonising over whether to sack his key ally, accepted Raab’s resignation morning with “great sadness”.

Raab went down swinging, criticising the “Kafkaesque saga” and accusing “committed officials” of trying to force him out of the Cabinet.

Tolley’s five-month investigation into eight formal complaints about Raab’s conduct as Brexit secretary and foreign secretary, and in his previous tenure leading the Ministry of Justice, was handed to Downing Street on Thursday morning.

Downing Street suggested that Sunak accepts his ally broke the ministerial code with what amounted to findings of bullying.

Raab was found to have described the work of officials as “utterly useless” and “woeful” while he was justice secretary.

He was said to try and make officials stop talking by “extending his hand directly out towards another person’s face” and “the use of a finger extended downwards to make a particular point”. “

Another example of such an allegation was loud banging of the table to make a point,” the report said.

Raab said said he felt “duty bound” to quit but sharply criticised the report as “flawed” for “setting the threshold for bullying so low”.

In his letter of resignation, he said the investigation would “encourage spurious complaints against ministers”.

Keir Starmer said Sunak’s failure to sack Raab, instead allowing him to resign, demonstrated the prime minister’s weakness. “He should never have appointed him in the first place,” the Labour leader said.

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