Sue Gray

Born in north London in 1957 or 1958, Gray is the daughter of Irish immigrants who moved to Tottenham in the early 1950s; her father was a furniture salesman and her mother a barmaid.

She studied at a state-funded Roman Catholic school.

Susan Gray (born 1958 (age 63)) is a British former civil servant, who has served as Chief of Staff to the Leader of the Opposition since March 2023.

She served from May 2021 to March 2023 as Second Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office, where she reported to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Her report into the Partygate scandal criticised the government led by Boris Johnson and contributed to his resignation as Prime Minister and ultimately to leaving Parliament.

She resigned from the Civil Service in March 2023 to take up a job as Chief of Staff to the Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer.

Her appointment provoked substantial controversy, and a Cabinet Office inquiry found that she had broken the Civil Service code.

She was subject to scrutiny by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), whose advice enabled her to work for the Labour Party from September 2023.

Following her father's sudden death in 1975, Gray abandoned her plan of going to university and joined the Civil Service straight from school.

Gray took a career break in the 1980s, a step described by journalist Sam McBride as "strikingly unorthodox".

During this time, she ran the Cove Bar, a pub in Newry, a border town in Northern Ireland, during The Troubles, with her husband Bill Conlon, a country music singer from Portaferry, County Down.

Peter Caldwell, a former special adviser to several ministers, said it had been speculated Gray was a spy at this time, though Gray denied it.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, her car was stopped one night by IRA paramilitaries who wanted to take it, only for her to be allowed to pass after a voice said "that's Sue Gray from The Cove, let her go on".

The family returned to London in 1987.

Gray has family connections to Northern Ireland and is reported to have a fondness for the region, which she visits with her husband.

She has two sons, including Liam Conlon, who is the chair of the Labour Party Irish Society.

In November 2023, it was reported that he would be Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Beckenham and Penge in the next general election.

Conlon is also vice-chair of Lewisham West and Penge constituency Labour party and a disabilities officer at the Communication Workers Union.

Gray joined the Cabinet Office in the late 1990s, having previously worked at the departments of Health, Transport, and Work and Pensions.

As part of her miscellaneous duties within the Cabinet Office, Gray was respnsible for the 2010+ reform of non-departmental public bodies.

In 2011, Gray advised Michael Gove that conducting government business via private e-mail accounts would make it exempt from transparency legislation.

However, the following year, the Information Commissioner found this guidance to be incorrect and ruled that emails that pertained to departmental business would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

From 2012 she was director-general of the Propriety and Ethics team, and head of the Private Offices Group, directly under the Cabinet Secretary.

This role gave her a wide-ranging remit over the operation of ministerial offices, public appointments, and government ethics.

She frequently dealt with sensitive matters and 'crises' arising from the operation of government.

She conducted the Cabinet Office inquiry into the behaviour of Andrew Mitchell during the 'Plebgate' affair in 2012.

Mitchell later resigned as Chief Whip.

As such, she was described in 2017 as "the woman who runs the country".

She was also responsible for the inquiry into the behaviour of Damian Green in 2017.

Green, a close ally of the then prime minister, Theresa May, was First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office.

He had been accused of sexual harassment and misusing office computers to view pornography.

Green was sacked from his ministerial positions in December 2017, but resisted calls to stand down as an MP.

In January 2018, the Northern Ireland Executive announced that Gray would transfer to the Northern Ireland Civil Service as Permanent secretary of the Department of Finance in the Northern Ireland Executive from May 2018.

In April 2018, it was announced that Gray had been replaced at the Cabinet Office by Helen MacNamara.

In 2020, Gray sought but failed to be appointed as the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and in a subsequent interview with the BBC said: "I suspect people may have thought that I perhaps was too much of a challenger, or a disrupter. I am both…"

In May 2021, Gray returned to Whitehall to become the Second Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office, in charge of policy on the Union and the constitution.

She reported to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; initially Michael Gove, who was replaced in September 2021 by Steve Barclay.

Following press reports about gatherings and parties on government premises during restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2021 – a controversy which became widely known as "Partygate" – the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case initiated and led an investigation into the allegations.

A few days later he recused himself after it became known that an event had been held in his own office, and subsequently Gray took over the investigation.

Whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson knew about and participated in gatherings at Downing Street is part of the investigation.