Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and partner Vikki Campion welcomed their second child on Saturday night, according to reports.

Thomas, who is named after Mr Joyce’s grandfather, is the second son for the couple, following the birth of Sebastian in April last year, amid a cloud of controversy.

Photographs or further details of the birth had not been released at the time of writing.

Mr Joyce and Ms Campion’s first baby together made national headlines – Ms Campion was a one-time media adviser to the New England MP.

Their relationship was outed in the media in February last year when a photograph of Ms Campion, pregnant, was splashed across page one of a daily newspaper.

It quickly emerged that Mr Joyce had left his partner of 24 years, and resumed a relationship with Ms Campion – something that proved a bone of contention between himself and then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

As a result, Mr Joyce resigned and Mr Turnbull introduced a ban on ministers having sexual relations with their staffers.

Mr Turnbull did not hide his disdain for his deputy’s behaviour, publicly denouncing his actions.

“But I think we know that the real issue is the terrible hurt and humiliation that Barnaby, by his conduct, has visited upon his wife, Natalie, and their daughters and, indeed, his new partner,” Mr Turnbull said at the time.

“Barnaby made a shocking error of judgement in having an affair with a young woman working in his office. In doing so, he has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us.”

Shortly before Sebastian’s birth, Mr Joyce found himself more scandal, by admitting in an interview with Fairfax Media that the paternity of the then-unborn child was a “grey area”.

Mr Joyce maintained he would raise the baby as his own.

In June last year, after Sebastian was born, the couple gave a tell-all interview to Channel Seven’s Sunday Night, in which Ms Campion revealed she was pressured by members of the National Party to have an abortion.

It further came to light the couple “auctioned off” the interview, pocketing $150,000 for the highest bid, to be held in a trust account for Sebastian.

Baby Thomas is Mr Joyce’s sixth child, and Ms Campion’s second.