Sue Gray started secret talks to join Sir Keir Starmer last October – months before she quit

SUE Gray started secret talks to join Sir Keir Starmer last October – months before she quit.

The former Cabinet enforcer has now been cleared to start work for the Labour chief in September after just a six month wait.

As Trending In The News on Sunday revealed last week, the talks were first held in October – five months before she resigned at the top Whitehall job.

But it doesn’t conclude whether she told her employers in government about the move at the time.

It means she was in talks with Labour about a new job while having access to highly sensitive Government information.

The ACOBA watchdog said there was no proof she had used it to her advantage.

But they gave her a six month “cooling off period” as there is a “potential risk to the perceived impartiality of the civil service” if she were allowed to start straight away.

The Levelling Up department where she worked, headed up by Michael Gove, said the job could have been perceived as “a reward” – but the committee said there was no evidence of this.

She had “deep and extensive access to information related to competitors of her proposed employer” and it “could be potentially politically valuable”.

She will then be allowed to help the Labour chief get ready for government in a top role, despite working at the highest levels of government while the Tories have been in power.

She had finished working on Boris Johnson’s partygate probe at the time of the first talks.

But she was still a senior civil servant passing information to Parliament’s privileges committee investigating Downing Street lockdown breaches.

Sir Keir has always said he is sure Ms Gray did not break rules.

He said he had accepted the advice from the committee – and was “delighted” Ms Gray would be working for the party.

He said: “Sue will lead our work preparing for a mission-led Labour government.

“She brings unrivalled experience on how the machinery of government works and is a woman of great integrity.”

The news she was being tapped up sent Westminster into a flurry back in March, as people accused of her bias.