It remains unclear whether Chris Hune will be forced to step down if the police open an investigation into the speeding points claims.
At this morning’s lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that Cameron had “full confidence” in the Energy Secretary and noted that Tony Blair had not stepped down during the cash-for-honours inquiry. But during a Q&A session following his speech on the NHS, Cameron refused to express confidence in him, merely noting that Huhne had “denied the allegations”.
The Essex police are still officially deciding whether to launch an investigation into Huhne, with Detective Superintendent Tim Wills commenting: “We take any allegations of criminal offences extremely seriously. However, an investigation will not be formally launched until our inquiries show that an offence has been committed. This is the work that my team and I will be carrying out this week.”
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In the meantime, Huhne has broken his silence with the following statement:
All I want to say is simply that these allegations are simply incorrect. They have been made before and they have been shown to be untrue. And I very much welcome the referral to the police as it will draw a line under the matter . . . I don’t want to say any more than that. I think the police can get to the bottom of this.