The deputy prime minister insists he has 'behaved professionally throughout' and dismisses calls for him to stand aside during the investigation citing the principal of 'innocent until proven guilty'.
"We believe in innocent until proven guilty in this country and look, I'll cooperate fully with the inquiry and I'll respect the outcome of that."
He went on:"If you believe in innocent until proven guilty, you wouldn't want to penalise people until you have got the outcome and I can see why that would politicise the process of lodging complaints because you can effectively, for months on end, remove cabinet members or other leading political figures."Speaking to the BBC later, Mr Raab again defended his behaviour but said he had learned lessons from his dealings with civil servants.
He said:"I think the lion's share of the time, the vast majority of cases and the time we spend together, civil servants and ministers work very effectively together."On whether there should be"more plain speaking in politics", he said:"Yes, absolutely. "What we need, and I think this can be reconciled absolutely with having a zero tolerance on bullying, you need ministers who come in and correctly but directly challenge assumptions, test ideas - that is the way we get the best out of government."
But Dave Penman, general secretary of the public services union, the FDA, told the BBC civil servants"don't have the confidence" to challenge bullying or harassment by senior figures in Whitehall.
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