A FORMER Forest of Dean district councillor who is now a government minister is under investigation for allegedly asking his secretary to buy sex toys.

Conservative MP Mark Garnier, who was a Forest councillor for the Tidenham ward from 2003 to 2007, is being probed by the Cabinet Office over whether the Ministerial Code of Conduct has been breached.

According to a national newspaper, the international trade minister and member for Wyre Forest in Worcestershire has admitted the incident, as well as making an inappropriate sexual comment to his former secretary, but denied his behaviour amounted to harrassment.

Caroline Edmondson told the Mail on Sunday that Mr Garnier had given her money to buy the sex toys at a Soho sex shop while he waited outside.

The claims, dating back to 2010 when he first became an MP after a career in the City, came in a week when Prime Minister Theresa May wrote to Commons Speaker John Bercow, calling for a new contractually-binding grievance procedure to be set up for all MPs and their staff.

Ms Edmondson, who now works for another MP, also claimed that Mr Garnier made an inappropriate comment to her in a bar in front of witnesses.

The newspaper reported that Mr Garnier, 54, had admitted the claims, saying: “I’m not going to deny it, because I’m not going to be dishonest. I’m going to have to take it on the chin.”

Mr Garnier admitted that his actions could look like “dinosaur behaviour”, but denied it amounted to “harrassment”.

A spokesman for No 10 said: “There is an investigation which the Prime Minister has asked for. I can’t pre-empt that.

“As soon as the Prime Minister was aware of these allegations, she asked for the review to take place.”

Standing as a Conservative, Mr Garnier, who had an address in Tidenham Chase at the time, was elected to the Forest council as Tidenham’s third ward member by just 19 votes in 2007.