Concerns were raised over the appointment of Emily Middleton

An FOI release shows Department of Science officials raised concerns about Emily Middleton's appointment, but did not include details of her former company's donation to Peter Kyle.

New documents obtained under FOI shows that officials in the Department of Science raised concerns relating to the appointment of Emily Middleton, with the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Ethics Team.

The documents also demonstrate that the Science Department failed to include full details of her political background on the face of the Exception Request form which they submitted to Whitehall’s Regulator - the Civil Service Commission. A reference to her work for the ‘Labour Party’ was only included in an attached CV. There does not seem to have been any reference to the £66,000 donation made by her former employer to Peter Kyle, nor her time working for Labour Together in the documents sent to Whitehall’s Regulator.

On the 10 July, just days after the Election the office of the Permanent Secretary in the Department of Science, Technology & Innovation, contacted the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Ethics team to ask about the appointment of Emily Middleton. I have obtained this email using FOI.

The results featured in the House of Commons earlier today, with Shadow Science Secretary Andrew Griffith pressing his counterpart about whether processes were followed. Kyle said:

‘Every donation that was made to this party in opposition has been declared in the appropriate ways’

I wonder if that’s actually true.

Did Kyle really draw the attention of his department to the donation from Middleton’s company, Public Digital, when he asked for her to be appointed? He would have to have done that to do things in the appropriate way.

There’s no evidence of that in the documents I have received under FOI.

Some of the other documents released under FOI were reported on by Politico’s Vincent Manancourt and Tom Bristow this morning.

But the full email exchange between the Science Department and the Cabinet Office is quite revealing.

It seems to show that the Science department did not have the full picture…