The cabinet minister Michelle Donelan is to face more questioning this week over her judgment after taxpayers funded a payout to an academic she had falsely accused of supporting Hamas.
The science secretary will appear before a cross-party group of peers on Tuesday, when she is expected to be questioned on the process that led her to make the accusation, which she has since retracted. The decision to leave taxpayers with the £15,000 bill is also likely to be raised. The sum was paid “without admitting any liability”, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said.
Donelan has yet to appear in the Commons to be questioned over her decision to publish a letter which accused two academics of holding “extremist” views and calling for them to be removed from a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) advisory group. An independent investigation ordered by UKRI cleared the pair of any wrongdoing. Both opposition parties are now looking at ways they can hold her to account.
While the government has said that Donelan was given official advice and lawyers were involved, it remains unclear whether she was given clearance to publish the letter on social media. There also appears to have been a puzzling urgency to putting the letter together: emails uncovered using the Freedom of Information Act reveal that civil servants and lawyers were working until midnight on a Friday night to edit and vet it.
The process is said to have involved “firm steers” from Donelan, though it is unknown exactly what she ordered to be included.
Wendy Chamberlain, the Lib Dem chief whip, said it was “clearly a botched decision which needs to be thoroughly investigated”. She added: “It is only right for the public to know why taxpayers’ money was used to foot the bill of Michelle Donelan’s actions. Michelle Donelan must be completely transparent with the public and come to the Commons to explain her actions.”
Some academics have also raised concerns about whether her judgment can now be trusted. Donelan oversees government funding for research. Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment said she had used her position “to carry out a culture-war attack against university researchers in a clear violation of academic freedom”.
The DSIT has said that there is an “established precedent under multiple administrations that ministers are provided with legal support and representation where matters relate to their conduct and responsibilities as a minister, as was the case here”.
