Politics RECAP: Boris Johnson to face questions over MPs' second jobs row as sleaze row rumbles on following PMQs grilling
The Prime Minister did not apologise for the Owen Paterson affair but repeated it was a “mistake” to conflate the issue with reforming the standards process more generally.
Sir Keir Starmer questioned if Boris Johnson would back an investigation into contracts given to Randox or “vote for another cover-up”.
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SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said the Prime Minister’s proposals to update the Code of Conduct for MPs are already “half-botched” and do not “even scratch the surface”.
Boris Johnson will face a showdown with his own backbenchers over plans to ban MPs from paid political consultancy work.
The PM is to be questioned by Liaison Committee with a standards debate from 1pm with vote around scheduled for around 7.
Boris Johnson will face MPs during Prime Minister's Questions and will also face the backbench 1922 Committee in a bid to repair relations with his MPs.
The Prime Minister announced that he supported a ban on consultancy ahead of a vote on the issue called by Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday.
The Government effectively took over Labour’s opposition day debate by tabling an amendment with its own proposals.
The move provoked a furious response from Labour who accused ministers of “watering down” their original motion, effectively making it non-binding.
You can follow updates in our live blog.
Politics LIVE: Boris Johnson to face questions over MPs’ second jobs row as sleaze row rumbles on following PMQs grilling
Ministers should not have to resign for “small breaches” of the ministerial code, Boris Johnson has said.
The Prime Minister told the Commons Liaison Committee that his independent adviser on the code, Lord Geidt, believed there should be lesser penalties for more minor breaches.
“As it was initially constituted it was basically a hair-trigger code so that one toe cap over any of the red lines and you were finished,” Mr Johnson said.
“It is the view of Lord Geidt – and I think that it is reasonable – that there should be gradations and there should be other sanctions, and small breach of the ministerial code should not necessarily lead to resignations.”
Mr Johnson said that giving the adviser power to initiate investigations would raised “difficult” constitutional issues but it was “highly unlikely” that he would turn down advice from Lord Geidt that an issue needed to be looked at.
Boris Johnson suggested he was led to believe that there was cross-party support for his abandoned plans to review MPs rules to prevent Owen Paterson’s immediate suspension.
The Prime Minister accepted that there was not the cross-party support for the Government-backed proposals as suggested to John Whittingdale, the Tory who was going to lead a panel to review the rules.
“I believed that there would be cross party support for idea…” he told the Commons Liaison Committee.
“It was put to me by colleagues that people would feel… indeed I was fortified by the reflection that many people would have felt this was a particularly difficult and sad case.”
He added: “The intention genuinely was not to exonerate anybody, the intention was to see whether there was some way in which, on a cross-party basis, we could improve the system.
“In retrospect it was obviously, obviously mistaken to think we could conflate the two things and do I regret that decision? Yes I certainly do.”
Boris Johnson admitted it may have “helped a bit” if he had said Owen Paterson had broken the rules sooner.
The PM was asked by Home Affairs Select Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper whether he should have been clear about that three weeks ago.
Mr Johnson said: “Yes, in retrospect, it would… it might have helped a bit if I’d said that I believe that Owen had broken the rules, as far as I could see.”
However, Ms Cooper replied: “Every time you say ‘as far as I could see’, ‘well it seems to me’, and you try and qualify it, you are undermining an independent system that we need to work.
“We need you to have some integrity, we need you to be able to uphold the standards.”
Mr Johnson said: “Let me repeat, it was clear to me that he’d broken the rules, that he’d fallen foul of the rules that we have in Parliament.”
He added it was a “total mistake” to think any progress could be made on standards reform in the midst of the Owen Paterson case.
The PM said: “It was a total mistake not to see that Owen’s breach of the rules, the former member for North Shropshire’s breach of the rules, made any discussion about anything else impossible, and I totally accept that.”
Boris Johnson has apologised for not wearing a mask on a visit to a hospital last week.
The Prime Minister said it was “barely 30 seconds” that he was not wearing a face-covering during the visit to Hexham General Hospital on November 8.
And he said he put it on as soon as he realised his mistake.
The SNP has called on the UK Government to rule out “cash for honours” in the future, describing it as a “corrupt practice” in “a Parliament in what is meant to be a Western democracy”.
In the Opposition Day debate on parliamentary standards, Angus Brendan MacNeil MP (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) said: “This is a good debate and it is well-intentioned debate, strengthening standards in public life, but Labour studiously avoided dealing with cash for honours and we should remember that the prime minister (Tony Blair) was interviewed under police caution on this matter back in 2006.
“I have tried with Labour and now I will try with the Conservatives – will the Tories rule out the practice of cash for honours? A very corrupt practice where high-value cash donors find themselves up in the House of Lords buying their place in a Parliament in what is meant to be a Western democracy for goodness sake.”
Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Cash for honours is illegal and has been for the best part of 100 years. It is something that is quite rightly illegal and is wholly improper and I think he has been right in his campaigns to ensure that that never tarnishes our way of life”
Earlier in November, SNP Commons leader Pete Wishart called for the Metropolitan Police to investigate honours given to past Conservative Party treasurers after donations of as much as £3 million to the party, but the Met said there was insufficient evidence to carry out an investigation.
Conservative Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) noted “it’s been a very bruising two weeks”.
He said: “We’re never happier when burning each other to a crisp, we love to skewer each other and place ourselves on the barbecue and roast ourselves pink and then serve ourselves up with a large side order of hubris. We’re all guilty of doing it on both sides of the House and we need to remember that. No-one in this place is perfect.”
He added: “The one thing I’ve learnt is that we’re not entitled to a fair hearing in this place: we’re guilty until proven guilty, it’s one of Newton’s laws, if you’re an MP you don’t get a fair hearing.”
Conservative former minister Sir Edward Leigh questioned how it would be determined if an MP was spending too much time on outside interests, adding: “It should be common-sense and it should be left to the judgment of the electorate.
“If it’s left to the Commissioner for Standards, however distinguished, that will give that official a degree of power never enjoyed by any official ever before over Members of Parliament.
“We are accountable not to officials but to our electorate.”
Chris Bryant, Labour chairman of the Committee on Standards, told the Commons: “I think it’ll be very, very difficult for the commissioner to start investigating whether an MP was devoting enough of their time to their constituents.
“Of course all our constituents want us to throw ourselves heart and soul into our work, and I think we all do – many of us work many, many more hours than a normal working week, 60, 70, 80 hours.”
Mr Bryant added he is “very hesitant about going down this route of timesheets”, noting he would urge his committee to “think very carefully about this”.
Boris Johnson warned Vladimir Putin against making a “tragic mistake” as tensions rise on the border between Russia and Ukraine.
The Prime Minister, appearing at the Commons Liaison Committee, was asked about the problems between Belarus and Poland and the situation in Ukraine.
Mr Johnson said the two cases are “very different” because Poland has a Nato security guarantee, meaning that any action against it could trigger a response from the entire alliance.
Ukraine does not have the same guarantee from Nato, “so what we have got to do is make sure that everybody understands the cost of a miscalculation on the borders of both Ukraine and Poland would be enormous”.
“I think it would be a tragic, tragic mistake for the Kremlin to think there was anything to be gained,” Mr Johnson said.
Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg said recommendations to update the code of conduct for MPs should be brought forward by January 31 2022, adding: “That sets a clear timeframe for progress on the issues discussed today.
“The Government therefore supports a more practical amendment that acknowledges the concerns we’ve all been hearing in recent days and positively proposes that the proportionate measures devised by the Committee on Standards in Public Life should be taken forward on a cross-party basis.”
SNP Commons leader Pete Wishart acknowledged there is a cost-of-living crisis, adding in the Commons: “And we are here debating our income.
“We are going over these issues about whether it’s right and appropriate for people to be earning even more than the very generous salaries that we already secure.”
Mr Wishart agreed with suggestions that the issue of second jobs was being used as a “smokescreen” to distract from the Government’s “appalling behaviour” in the last two weeks.