evidence would be gathered, and the way in which it would be shared with Mr Johnson. We discuss this further in paragraphs 217 to 221 below, but we have ensured that our inquiry has been robust, rigorous and fair.
11. The Committee has been fair in its procedures, not only because that was right as a matter of principle and what Mr Johnson was entitled to, but also to command the confidence of Parliament and the public. Before we embarked on the substance of the inquiry we sought advice from our legal adviser Rt Hon Sir Ernest Ryder, former Senior President of Tribunals and Lord Justice of Appeal, from Speaker’s Counsel, and from the Clerks of the House on how we should apply the general principles of fairness, the rules of the House, and the procedural precedents that were available to us.[1]
12. Our guiding principles included being transparent. Pursuant to our commitment to “show our workings”, we published in July 2022 a report setting out the processes we intended to follow, and have followed this up with further public comments on our procedures when appropriate.[2]
13. We proceeded as rapidly as possible. Some delay was engendered by the length of time it took to persuade the Government to supply the unredacted documents and records we requested, so that we could be confident our conclusions were based on solid foundations. Further delay was incurred by our agreeing to requests by Mr Johnson for additional time to respond to our evidence and make his own submissions. We did so in order to ensure that Mr Johnson was being treated fairly. We proceeded as quickly as we could while ensuring evidence was properly obtained and tested.
14. In bringing forward our report, we note that the Committee was instructed to carry out this inquiry by the House on 21 April 2022 without a vote against. We further note that each of the Committee’s members were appointed to the Committee by the House without division. Each member has done their duty on behalf of the House. Despite this, from the outset of this inquiry there has been a sustained attempt, seemingly co-ordinated, to undermine the Committee’s credibility and, more worryingly, that of those Members serving on it. The Committee is concerned that if these behaviours go unchallenged, it will be impossible for the House to establish such a Committee to conduct sensitive and important inquiries in the future. The House must have a Committee to defend its rights
- ↑ In many areas, such as the question of whether Counsel could be heard by the Committee, we were bound by rules which only the House could change. In the limited areas where precedent allowed procedural flexibility, we exercised that flexibility when needed.
- ↑
During the course of the inquiry Mr Johnson has repeatedly challenged our procedures. He obtained three Opinions from counsel (Lord Pannick KC and Jason Pobjoy). The first Opinion was published by the Government without giving us notice or seeking our consent; as this had been placed in the public domain, we responded by way of a published report, in September 2022. We published the second Opinion with our Fourth Report, in March 2023; and we publish the third Opinion with the present report. We also publish responses to counsel’s arguments from our own legal adviser, Sir Ernest Ryder. In summary we can say that we have considered the representations and find them to be without merit. We note in particular that a great many of Mr Johnson’s counsel’s arguments are based on fallacious analogies between the inquisitorial parliamentary process and the quite separate adversarial process which is followed in the courts. We set out further comments and background information on our procedures in Annex 1 to this report. This annex deals, among other things, with the following:
- Clearing up misunderstandings about the House’s inquisitorial procedures
- Rebutting arguments that the Committee has strayed beyond its order of reference
- Explaining that our report is not based on the Sue Gray report, or on the evidence taken by Sue Gray: the Committee has obtained its own evidence from all relevant witnesses.
