A cabinet minister has refused to be drawn on the future of a Tory MP who allegedly groped two men, as Labour demands he is stripped of the party whip.
Wales Secretary Simon Hart told Sky News he was “very sad” about the situation, but insisted it was for the Conservative chief whip to make a decision over the future of Chris Pincher.
There was also a complaints process to be followed, he said.
Mr Pincher, 52, resigned from his role as deputy chief whip after admitting he had drunk “far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people” on a night out.
“I apologise to you and to those concerned,” the MP for Tamworth added in a letter to the prime minister.
Mr Pincher “groped two men in front of others” at the Carlton Club in the St James’s area of central London, a government source told Sky News.
One of those groped is an MP, and the second one may also be a member of parliament, the source added.
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Mr Hart told Sky News: “This makes me very sad, it makes me sad for everybody who’s been involved in these things.
“It’s clearly something which has gone terribly wrong.
“There is a process, I think it’s important that the process is followed.”
He added: “I think it is entirely right, that the chief whip and others take a view today about what is the appropriate course of action.
“Of course, if there are those who are victims of this or who wish to raise complaint, they can do so.
“The chief whip looking into this and deciding what to do next is not dependent on a complaint being made, that can happen anyway.
“Let’s let today play out, let the chief whip do his duty today, and then I think we might be having a very different conversation as the day goes on.”
Pressed over whether he hoped the matter would get swept under the carpet, he said: “Absolutely not.
“This is not the first time, I fear it possibly won’t be the last. This happens in workplaces from time to time.”
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said Mr Johnson had “serious questions to answer” about why Mr Pincher had been “given this role (as deputy chief whip) in the first place and how he can remain a Conservative MP”.
His departure comes less than a week after former Tory chairman Oliver Dowden stood down over two bruising by-election defeats.
It is the second time Mr Pincher has quit the whips’ office.
In November 2017, Downing Street said he had “voluntarily referred himself both to the party’s complaints procedure and the police”.
The Mail on Sunday reported that Mr Pincher had been accused of making an unwanted pass at Conservative activist and former British rower Alex Story.
Mr Pincher told the newspaper: “If Mr Story has ever felt offended by anything I said, then I can only apologise to him.”
Theresa May reappointed him to the whips’ office the following year.
