Damian Howard Green PC (born 17 January 1956)[1] is a British politician who served as First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office from June[2] to December 2017 in the second May government.

Green was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, in Wales and studied philosophy, politics and economics at Balliol College, Oxford.

[3] After working as a journalist for the BBC, Channel 4 and The Times, he entered parliament at the 1997 general election by winning the seat of Ashford in Kent.

At the 2024 general election, Green lost the Ashford constituency to Sojan Joseph of the Labour Party amidst a strong nationwide swing from the Conservatives.

[18] He has supported voluntary return for overstayers and other migrants in order to avoid deportation, claiming "we expect those with no right to be in the country to leave voluntarily".

[22] Green is chairman of Parliamentary Mainstream, a vice-president of the Tory Reform Group and is a vice-chairman of the John Smith Memorial Trust.

[26] While a backbencher, he was a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee from 1997 until his appointment to the frontbench by William Hague in 1998 as a spokesman on education and employment.

[29] Between July 2009 and February 2010, Green was paid £16,666.64 for 112 hours by South East Water for "attending meetings and offering advice" according to the House of Commons Record of Members Interests.

[41] The arrest led to speculation about the apparent coincidence that it was authorised on the last day in office of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

[46] A junior Home Office civil servant, Christopher Galley, subsequently admitted leaking four "embarrassing" documents to Green and was sacked.

[50] During the 2017 Westminster sexual scandals revelations, a Cabinet Office inquiry was started into allegations Green sent suggestive text messages and "fleetingly" touched the knee of a young Conservative activist.

[55] In December 2017 the police expert was being investigated by Scotland Yard for keeping copies of confidential material, unrelated to the case he was working on, and then releasing it to the public.

[61] In his resignation letter, Green said that he deeply regretted the distress to Maltby that the reaction to her article about him had caused, and although maintaining that he did not recognise the events described in it, he "clearly made her feel uncomfortable" and apologised for doing so.

[63] A few days later, Green faced calls to stand down as an MP, following the disclosure of a "dirty tricks" campaign which appeared to target his accuser.

The faked message and subsequent article falsely accused of her of having flirtatiously texted Green that she regretted his absence from his party, because in his stead one of his aides had "been smooching the room on your behalf x".

[66] The Conservative MP Anna Soubry, previously an ally of Green, told the Sunday Times that attempts to smear Maltby were "wrong and shameful".

Another Conservative MP said: "It appears that Green's allies barely paused for breath after he apologised for the distress caused to Kate Maltby before launching an attack.

"[65] Maltby and her supporters had accused Green of also being behind a negative, anonymously-briefed attack on her written by the Daily Mail journalist Andrew Pierce.

Her parents, in a statement, responded angrily to claims made by Pierce that they disapproved of her actions and condemned "the attempted campaign in certain sections of the media to denigrate and intimidate her and other witnesses".

[67] Writing in the Sunday Times, Maltby alleged that the Daily Mail attack had been coordinated by Green's team and formed part of a broader strategy of witness intimidation.