BREAKING: Minister resigns after accusations of focusing on journalists

The former Cabinet Office minister has been under pressure over claims that Labour Together, a think tank he ran before entering Government, paid a PR firm to look into journalists

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Labour MP Josh Simons has resigned as a Cabinet Office minister, saying he had “become a distraction from this Government’s important work”.

The former Cabinet Office minister has been under pressure over claims that Labour Together, a think tank he ran before entering Government, paid PR firm Apco Worldwide at least £30,000 to look into journalists, including from the Sunday Times, the Guardian and other outlets.

In his resignation letter to the PM, Mr Simons said: “It is clear that my remaining in office has now become a distraction from this Government’s important work. For that reason, and with sadness and regret, I offer my resignation.”

Apco was commissioned to look into the “sourcing, funding and origins” of reporting in 2023 about Labour Together’s failure to declare more than £700,000 in donations. The think tank was fined £14,250 in September 2021 over late reporting of donations between 2017 and 2020, after referring itself to the Electoral Commission.

A story in the Sunday Times was based on documents obtained by the freelance journalist Paul Holden, which were due to feature in further stories published by an American journalist, Matt Taibbi.

Mr Simons had repeatedly denied asking the firm to delve into the backgrounds of British journalists. Sir Laurie Magnus, the PM’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, has now cleared him of breaching the ministerial code.

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