Matter referred on 21 April 2022 (conduct of Rt Hon Boris Johnson): Final Report/Chapter 1

by House of Commons Committee of Privileges

1 Introduction

The establishment of this inquiry

1. On 21 April 2022 the House of Commons resolved that:

Given the issue of fixed penalty notices by the police in relation to events in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, assertions the Rt hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip has made on the floor of the House about the legality of activities in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office under Covid regulations, including but not limited to the following answers given at Prime Minister’s Questions: 1 December 2021, that “all guidance was followed in No. 10”, Official Report vol. 704, col. 909; 8 December 2021 that “I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”, Official Report vol. 705, col. 372; 8 December 2021 that “I am sickened myself and furious about that, but I repeat what I have said to him: I have been repeatedly assured that the rules were not broken”, Official Report vol. 705, col. 372 and 8 December 2021 that “the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times”, Official Report vol. 705, col. 379, appear to amount to misleading the House.^[1]

2. The House accordingly ordered that this matter be referred to the Committee of Privileges to consider whether Mr Johnson’s conduct amounted to a contempt.

3. Our task in this inquiry has been to decide whether or not Mr Johnson misled the House of Commons, whether or not he thereby committed a contempt of the House, and if so, what was the nature and extent of his culpability. This is what the House of Commons required us to do, by referring the matter to us in the terms of the motion quoted above, which was carried without a vote against.

The importance of this inquiry

4. This inquiry goes to the very heart of our democracy. Misleading the House is not a technical issue, but a matter of great importance. Our democracy is based on people electing Members of Parliament not just to enable a government to be formed and supported but to scrutinise legislation and hold the Executive to account for its actions. The House proceeds on the basis that what it is told by Ministers is accurate and truthful. The House expects pro-active candour and transparency. Our democracy depends on MPs’ being able to trust that what Ministers tell them in the House of Commons is the truth. If Ministers cannot be trusted to tell the truth, the House cannot do its job and the confidence of the public in our democracy is undermined.

5. The House expects all Members to act with integrity, which is why we refer to each other as Honourable Members. Untruthful or misleading statements from Ministers are more damaging even than those from Opposition or backbench Members because they frustrate and impede the House in its vital role of scrutinising the Government. Where, as in this case, the Minister who is alleged to have misled the House is the Prime Minister, the head of the Government, the effect of any misleading is exceptionally serious both for the potential impact on public confidence and because the Prime Minister sets the standard for all other Ministers of the Crown in how they account to the House.

6. It is inevitable that Ministers make mistakes and inadvertently mislead, and when they do, they are expected to correct the record at the earliest opportunity. This happens routinely. When a Minister makes an honest mistake and then corrects it, that is democracy working as it should. There is no basis for any fear that the requirement to be truthful with the House has a “chilling” effect on the ability of Ministers to be candid with the House. The House will also be understanding if a Minister declines to answer, for example, on matters which relate to national security or market sensitivity. But misleading intentionally or recklessly,^[2] refusing to answer legitimate questions, or failing to correct misleading statements, impedes or frustrates the functioning of the House and is a contempt.

7. The subject on which Mr Johnson is alleged to have misled the House could not have been more serious. The Covid-19 pandemic was the biggest crisis our country has faced in generations and the greatest peacetime challenge in a century. It disrupted lives, separated friends and families, closed businesses, damaged livelihoods and, most tragically of all, has been associated with the deaths of over 150,000 people in the UK. In response, in the interests of protecting public health, the Government and Parliament imposed extensive restrictions on people’s freedom.

8. It has not been the purpose of this inquiry to examine the rights or wrongs of the Covid Rules and Guidance, nor have we sought to repeat the inquiry commissioned by Mr Johnson from the then Second Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office (Sue Gray) into the conduct of individual Ministers and officials in No. 10. What the House mandated us to do was to investigate whether Mr Johnson told the truth to Parliament, to the best of his knowledge, about No. 10’s compliance with those Rules and Guidance. The inquiry has been about what was the truth, which is why it goes to the heart of the trust on which our system of accountability depends.

9. This Committee is made up of Members of Parliament who have been appointed to this role by the House of Commons. The political balance on the Committee reflects that in the House, as far as is possible. The Committee comprises four Conservative and three Opposition MPs (two from Labour and one from the Scottish National Party). Having said that, we leave our party interests at the door of the committee room and conduct our work in the interests of the House. That is what we have striven to do throughout this inquiry.

The procedures in this inquiry

10. The House’s procedures for dealing with cases of privilege are long-established and we have worked within these procedures. Committees do not have power to hear Counsel, unless they have been given it by the House. They must proceed in an inquisitorial way. However, as has been done before, given the seriousness of this case, the Committee agreed and published a procedure for the investigation, setting out both the way in which 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

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 and privileges, and it must protect Members of the House doing that duty from formal or informal attack or undermining designed to deter and prevent them from doing that duty. We will be making a Special Report separately to the House dealing with these matters.

15. We note that Mr Johnson at no point denounced this campaign while it was under way. Giving oral evidence, he expressed respect for the Committee and said, when pressed to do so, that he deprecated terms such as “witch hunt” and “kangaroo court”, but said “the people will judge for themselves” whether the Committee had been fair. Asked in relation to the Committee’s inquiry, “you would not characterise it as a witch hunt or a kangaroo court?”, he replied “I will wait to see how you proceed with the evidence that you have”. Despite a later communication expressing confidence in the Committee (see paragraph 223 below), he intimated that he would only accept the Committee’s conclusions if they were favourable to him, which indeed is demonstrated by his abusive reaction to our warning letter, which we discuss further below.^[5]

16. Finally, we note that our inquiry, as mandated by the House, has been solely into the conduct of Mr Johnson. We have not investigated, nor in this report do we comment on, the conduct of any other individuals. This report must not be treated as being critical of anyone other than the subject of the inquiry.

The evidence in this inquiry

17. In our inquiry we examined what Mr Johnson said to the House about gatherings in No. 10 and whether what he said to the House was correct or not. If a statement was misleading, we considered whether it was a genuine error, was reckless, or was intentional, and whether the record was corrected comprehensively and in good time. We considered evidence supplied by the Government, including emails, WhatsApp messages and photographs. We received a limited number of WhatsApp messages from Mr Johnson.^[6] We took written evidence, submitted with statements of truth, from witnesses present at the relevant times, to inform us of what Mr Johnson would have known at the time of his statements to the House. We relied only on first-hand evidence and not on hearsay or evidence repeated by others. We paid a visit to No. 10 to inspect for ourselves the locations of the various gatherings to which Mr Johnson referred in the House.

18. As set out in Chapters 2 and 3 of this report, on the basis of information that is in the public domain and evidence that the Committee has obtained, and in the context of what Mr Johnson has said to the House of Commons, we established:

1. What Rules and Guidance relating to Covid were in force at the relevant time (see Chapter 2);
2. Mr Johnson’s knowledge of those Rules and Guidance (see Chapter 2);
3. Mr Johnson’s attendance at, or knowledge of, gatherings that breached the Rules or Guidance (see Chapter 2);

4. What Mr Johnson was told by others and what assurances he was given by them about compliance with the Rules and Guidance (see Chapter 3);
5. What Mr Johnson told the House (see Chapter 3).

19. Mr Johnson spoke in the House of Commons about the question of Covid compliance in No. 10 more than 30 times, most particularly on 1 December 2021, 8 December 2021 and 25 May 2022.^[7] He gave oral evidence on oath to the Committee on 22 March 2023. Speaking in the Chamber and to the Committee he variously asserted that Rules and Guidance were followed in No. 10 “completely”, “at all times”, and while he was present at gatherings.^[8]

1. Votes and Proceedings, 21 April 2022, item 3
2. As stated in the Committee’s Fourth Report, the Committee is adopting plain-English definitions of these and other key terms as used in a Parliamentary context. See: Committee of Privileges, Fourth Report of Session 2022–23, Matter referred on 21 April 2022: summary of issues to be raised with Mr Johnson (HC 1203), published 3 March 2023, footnote 4
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Oral evidence: Matter referred on 21 April 2022: Conduct of Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP, HC 564, taken on 22 March 2023, Qq141–45
6. We note that Mr Johnson has recently undertaken to supply the Covid public inquiry with a large number of his personal WhatsApp messages. This contrasts with his highly restrictive release of such messages to us. If it transpires from examination of the WhatsApp messages supplied to the Covid inquiry that there was relevant material which should have been disclosed to us either by Mr Johnson or the Cabinet Office, this would be a serious matter which the House might need to revisit.
7. See Annex 2
8. See paragraphs 120 to 131, and Annex 2