Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministers' interests, has called on prime minister Boris Johnson to explain his case for having remained compliant with the ministerial code despite being sanctioned over Partygate.
Johnson has insisted that despite being fined by the Metropolitan Police for breaking Covid lockdown laws, he has not broken the ministerial code.
The ministerial code outlines the rules and standards that government ministers are to adhere to in high office. The code stipulates ministers have an “overarching duty” to obey the law.
If the code is broken, it is expected that ministers resign from their position.
Lord Geidt [pictured] said that he had been in repeated contact with the prime minister’s team, asking them to be prepared to set out Johnson’s case for why he had not breached the code despite being fined.
The standards adviser said that he did this to “ensure that the prime minister should publicly be seen to take responsibility for his own conduct under his own ministerial code”.
However, Lord Geidt has since suggested that such advice was ignored after Johnson “made not a single public reference” to it. He then appealed to the PM to provide the British public with an explanation.
In his annual report on ministers’ interests, Lord Geidt said that it would be “especially difficult to inspire trust in the ministerial code if any prime minister, whose code it is, declines to refer to it”.
He added that there was a “legitimate question” to be answered on whether Johnson’s Partygate fine and the fact that he had broken the law “might have constituted a breach of the overarching duty within the ministerial code of complying with the law”.
Lord Geidt continued by saying that even if Johnson insisted that he had not broken the code, he ought to “respond accordingly, setting out his case in public.”
Responding to Lord Geidt in a letter, Johnson said that he was “not aware of the weight put on the absence of an explicit reference to the ministerial code” and insisted he had not breached the code despite being fined.
He wrote: “I have taken full responsibility for everything that took place on my watch and reiterate my apology to the House and to the whole country.
“I have also been clear that there was no intent to break the regulations. Paying a fixed penalty notice is not a criminal conviction.”
Johnson’s fine was issued by the Metropolitan Police after it carried out a probe into parties taking place in government buildings during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Johnson was among 83 people fined over 12 different events that the Met investigated. Johnson’s fine related to an event in June 2020 in celebration of his birthday. His wife, Carrie Johnson, and chancellor Rishi Sunak also received fines relating to the same event.
A report compiled by senior civil servant Sue Gray also criticised Downing Street’s leadership for enabling the gatherings to happen, and for allowing a toxic drinking culture to fester while the remainder of the country was unable to socialise.
The PM has since apologised to Parliament, saying that he had been “shocked” by Gray’s findings and would learn from the experience.
While Johnson has been backed by his fellow Cabinet ministers, 28 Tory MPs have called on him to resign since the full Gray report was disclosed.
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
