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Conor Burns has been sacked as a trade minister and had the whip suspended following a complaint about "serious misconduct".
The MP for Bournemouth West said that “he will fully cooperate with the investigation and looks forward to clearing his name”.
A complaint was made to the Whips’ office on Thursday night about an incident that took place at the Hyatt hotel bar in Birmingham, The Telegraph understands.
A No10 spokesman said: “Following a complaint of serious misconduct, the Prime Minister has asked Conor Burns MP to leave the government with immediate effect.
“The Prime Minister took direct action on being informed of this allegation and is clear that all ministers should maintain the high standards of behaviour – as the public rightly expects.”
On Thursday evening, the Whips' office was contacted by a conference delegate who witnessed the incident take place in the Hyatt hotel bar.
Downing Street sources insisted that his appointment went through the usual processes and checks by the Cabinet Office proprietary and ethics team.
A Whips’ office spokesman said: “We have suspended the whip pending investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour earlier this week.
“We take all such allegations extremely seriously. The Prime Minister has been clear that the highest standards in public life must be upheld.”
Tory party sources indicated that Mr Burns is under investigation for displaying allegedly untoward behaviour - including making allegedly inappropriate remarks - on the final night of Tory party conference at the Hyatt hotel bar.
Given that the complaint was made by a third party, the Whips’ office is understood to be seeking to interview the alleged victim to hear their account first-hand.
As part of the investigation, the Chief Whip will also try to speak to other eyewitnesses to see if their accounts corroborate, The Telegraph understands.
The Hyatt hotel in Birmingham - where the alleged incident took place - was part of the Conservative Party conference “secure zone”, meaning it was frequented by delegates as they made their way between fringe events and receptions.
Every evening during the conference, which began last weekend and ended on Wednesday, the luxury hotel bar was packed with MPs, ministers, lobbyists and Tory activists.
That's all for this week.
That ends a momentous week in British politics, which started with a major policy U-turn at the Tory party conference and ended with the sacking of one of Liz Truss's ministers following allegations around his behaviour.
Conor Burns was sacked by the Prime Minister shortly after allegations of inappropriate behaviour - which he denies - at the conference in Birmingham emerged. He has also lost the party whip.
As Chris Bryant, the chairman of the standards committee, writes this evening: "So far in this parliament, 16 MPs have been suspended from the House or have resigned their seat for various misdemeanours.
"This is completely unprecedented. No parliament has ever seen this before. And we’ve two years to go."
It is clear Westminster still has a deep-set cultural problem around alleged abuse and bad behaviour from a minority of MPs. The ball is now in Liz Truss's court to succeed where Boris Johnson arguably failed and restore trust by taking the required action.
These accusations are the latest in a long line
The allegations around Conor Burns are the latest to befall a Conservative Party that has spent much of the past year mired in sleaze claims.
Mr Burns, the MP for Bournemouth West, said after his suspension that "he will fully cooperate with the investigation and looks forward to clearing his name."
David Warburton, the MP for Somerset and Frome, had the whip withdrawn in April after allegations surfaced about drugs and sexually inappropriate behaviour.
An investigation is under way into claims Mr Warburton took cocaine and was sexually inappropriate towards three women.
He insisted he would launch a robust defence and denies wrongdoing. In the same month Imran Ahmad Khan, the Tory MP for Wakefield, was jailed for 18 months after being found guilty of child sex offences. Khan, who lost the party whip and then quit as an MP, forced a teenager to drink gin, dragged him upstairs and asked him to watch pornography before the attack in 2008, a court was told.
Also in April, Neil Parish stepped down as the Tory MP for Tiverton and Honiton in April after a "moment of madness" in which he deliberately watched pornography in the Commons, having once viewed it accidentally.
Chris Pincher quit as deputy chief whip in July amid claims he had groped two men at an event. In his letter to Mr Johnson, he wrote: "Last night I drank far too much. I’ve embarrassed myself and other people which is the last thing I want to do and for that I apologise to you and those concerned."
Complaint 'relates to hotel allegations'
On Thursday evening, the Whips' Office was contacted by a conference delegate who witnessed the alleged incident take place in the Hyatt hotel bar in Birmingham, one of the key conference hotels used for the Conservative Party Conference, writes Camilla Turner.
Downing Street sources insisted that his appointment went through the usual processes and checks by the Cabinet Office Propriety & Ethics Team.
Breaking: Liz Truss sacks Conor Burns
A No 10 spokesman said: "Following a complaint of serious misconduct, the Prime Minister has asked Conor Burns MP to leave the government with immediate effect.
"The Prime Minister took direct action on being informed of this allegation and is clear that all ministers should maintain the high standards of behaviour – as the public rightly expects."
'We take all such allegations extremely seriously'
This from Camilla Turner, our Chief Political Correspondent:
A Whips' Office spokesman said: "We have suspended the Whip pending investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour earlier this week.
"We take all such allegations extremely seriously. The Prime Minister has been clear that the highest standards in public life must be upheld."
Profile: Conor Burns
Born in Belfast before moving to Hertfordshire aged eight, Conor Burns worked in finance and communications before becoming the Tory MP for Bournemouth West in 2010.
He was previously a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Boris Johnson during Mr Johnson's time as foreign secretary, but resigned in July 2018 so he could speak "more openly" on other areas of policy.
This was followed by a stint as trade minister between 2018 and 2020, at which point he resigned after an investigation found he threatened a company chairman over a financial dispute with his father.
Mr Burns became a Northern Ireland minister last year, working alongside Brandon Lewis, before returning as a trade minister in the Cabinet reshuffle last month.
Breaking: Conor Burns suspended
The international trade minister has been suspended after "complaints" about his behaviour at the Conservative Party Conference.
Conor Burns, the MP for Bournemouth West, is the subject of allegations around events at the convention in Birmingham earlier this week.
Mr Burns, a former Northern Ireland minister, has now temporarily had the party suspended pending investigation, the Sun reported.
He told the newspaper he "will fully cooperate with the investigation and looks forward to clearing his name".
Liz Truss needs to defeat the anti-growth Tories first
If there's one success Liz Truss can point to in her premiership so far, it’s shifting the national conversation towards a pro-growth narrative.
“Everyone’s talking about growth now”, her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng told a packed fringe event at Tory party conference on Tuesday. He’s right. Across the political spectrum now, politicians are framing their policy ideas around what might increase GDP.
It was the Prime Minister’s most impressive political move to date, labelling her opponents as an "anti-growth coalition" in her conference speech. Let’s be honest, the bar for political competence has been set low by this administration: but framing opposition to supply-side reform as anti-growth has everyone desperate to prove their more liberal credentials.
A Government that has 'lost the narrative'?
Support for the Conservatives is "imploding before our eyes", academic and pollster Matthew Goodwin has said.
Mr Goodwin's firm People Polling is behind the latest data that show Labour with a 32-point lead in a poll carried out yesterday for GB News.
Speaking to the channel, he said: "There is no evidence at all, so far, that Liz Truss and the Conservatives, despite their conference, have managed to close the gap with Labour.
"Sir Keir Starmer and Labour still hold a commanding lead while the Conservatives are only holding around 40 per cent of the people who voted for Boris Johnson in 2019.
"It is clear that a plurality of people blame the government for the current economic turmoil, which underlines the extent to which it has lost the narrative. A larger number of people blame the Government rather than global events, including the war in Ukraine."
Even Macron has realised the EU can’t claim to speak for Europe
At first, Liz Truss dismissed Emmanuel Macron’s plan for a new club of European nations. There are already too many such talking shops, she said: why not make them work better? But Tim Barrow, the new national security adviser, changed her mind, writes Fraser Nelson.
Isn’t Brexit all about the need to co-operate more closely as free nation states? Isn’t this Prague summit a perfect chance to do just that? If this new group didn’t exist, he said, Britain would be lobbying to create it.
So the Prime Minister flew off yesterday for her first European summit: a genuine one, with 44 members rather than the subset of 27 EU states.
At first, Macron envisaged a club of liberal democracies but then decided to let in the Serbs, Turks and (worst of all) the Azerbaijanis. A motley bunch, he thought, but this is soft power. A global war of influence is being waged and if dinner in Prague Castle moves them even a few inches away from Moscow’s orbit and towards the West, that would be worthwhile.
From the British perspective all this should be seen as a bonus, even a breakthrough.
Fraser Nelson: This new club is the chance for a fresh start
Nicola Sturgeon to outline plans for independent 'Scottish pound'
Nicola Sturgeon has said Scots would be asked to vote for independence without knowing when the pound would be dumped and with the Bank of England in charge of a separate Scotland’s interest rates, reports Simon Johnson, our Scottish Political Editor.
The First Minister said there would be no "fixed timescale" for replacing sterling with a Scottish pound, meaning the Bank of England would continue to determine monetary policy and interest rates for a separate Scotland indefinitely.
Speaking ahead of the start of the SNP conference in Aberdeen today, she disclosed that the Scottish Government will publish an updated economic case for independence next week.
However, this means that delegates at the conference will be unable to discuss her plans after previously voting that they wanted to move away from the pound as soon as possible.
Nicola Sturgeon: 'Absurd' I've not had phone call with Truss
Nicola Sturgeon claimed Liz Truss has not held a phone call with her more than a month since becoming Prime Minister.
Speaking to the BBC, Ms Sturgeon said: "It's not the right way to do government in a grown up way. So I hope we will see a change.
In separate remarks made in an interview with BBC Scotland, she added: "I'll meet with her, I'll speak to her, but let's just underline how absurd it is that a UK prime minister doesn't seem to want to work with - other than in rhetoric - the devolved administrations in the rest of the UK."
A Government spokesman told the BBC Ms Truss's priority was to deliver economic growth, adding: "UK government ministers, including the minister for intergovernmental relations, along with officials, are continuing to engage regularly with their devolved counterparts."
'When you lose such a close loved one, you can’t look at life in the same way'
Ian Russell has felt a weight lift from him. It is nearly five years since his daughter, Molly, took her own life, but a long, painful wait for answers only came to an end less than a week ago.
In a landmark ruling, a coroner concluded that social media brought about the death of his 14-year-old daughter in 2017 by inundating her with images and videos relating to self-harm and suicide.
Molly’s image appeared in news reports around the globe. Yet for Ian, his wife and Molly’s two older sisters, there was simply "relief" that their feelings about the cause of her death had been formally recognised. Their grieving can now enter a different phase.
The 59-year-old is in a reflective mood when he sits down for his first newspaper interview since the dramatic end to the inquest into Molly’s death.
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