Commons standards chief hits out over Partygate legal advice reports

The former chair of the House of Commons standards committee has hit out at reports that the government has obtained legal advice that undermines the inquiry into claims Boris Johnson misled parliament over the Partygate scandal.

Several newspapers, led by the Daily Mail, revealed on Friday that Lord Pannick, the crossbench peer known for previously acting against the government in the courts on cases related to Brexit, has drawn up the legal advice after being commissioned within the Cabinet Office.

Supporters of the outgoing prime minister, including the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, told the Daily Mail Pannick’s expert opinion should mean the end of the committee on privileges and standards inquiry into whether Johnson misled parliament, which was labelled by Dorries and others as a “kangaroo court”.

The committee, chaired by Harriet Harman, is set to look into whether the prime minister misled the Commons when he claimed “all guidance was followed in No 10” and there was “no party” breaking lockdown rules.

Responding to the reports, Chris Bryant, the former chair of the standards committee who recused himself from the role due to his previous criticism of Johnson, told BBC Radio 4 the “kangaroo court is the Daily Mail”.

He said: “It’s very odd they [the newspapers] are announcing it’s coming, so there’s a lot of briefing about what this legal advice is going to say, which may not prove to be fully accurate when we see the final thing.”

He continued: “I’ve not seen the actual advice … but I think it’s completely misleading or misjudged because of course you want ministers when they stand up in the House of Commons to be careful about what they say to make sure what they’re saying is the truth.

“If they managed for some reason to misspeak or get a fact wrong they have a perfect opportunity through the House of Commons processes for correcting the record.

“There’s a perfectly sensible way of correcting the record if a minister gets something accidentally wrong.

“The question for the committee is simple: did the PM mislead the house? If he misled the house, which on prima facie he did so on several occasions, is that a contempt of parliament because he didn’t correct the record swiftly enough and he was culpable?”

Johnson, who in recent days has refused to rule out a political comeback, could be suspended or even kicked out of the Commons after a recall petition if he is found to be in contempt of parliament.

The PM’s supporters have said there would be a “chilling effect” on ministers if they could be found in contempt of court for “accidentally” saying something inaccurate in the Commons.

Bryant argues that the process allows for ministers to correct the parliamentary record if they subsequently learned they had been inaccurate. He gave an example of how he challenged Johnson over a claim the PM made in the Commons that the oligarch Roman Abramovich had been sanctioned at a time when he had not. Johnson shortly afterwards corrected the record with a written statement.

The Cabinet Office said the matter was being dealt with by Downing Street. No 10 was contacted for comment.

The legal advice by Pannick is reportedly due to be published at midday on Friday.

source: theguardian.com