Commons Privileges Committee investigation into Boris Johnson

This article is part of a series about Boris Johnson
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The UK House of Commons Committee of Privileges inquiry into the matter referred on 21 April 2022 on the conduct of Boris Johnson concerns four specific assertions made by the then Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Questions about "the legality of activities in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office under Covid regulations", events commonly referred to as Partygate. The investigation is concerned with whether Johnson misled the Commons when he made these statements.^[1] Johnson resigned over the investigation after having been sent a draft copy of the committee's report.

The Committee had voted on the final report text and unanimously supported it. They concluded that Johnson had deliberately misled the House, a contempt of Parliament. They said that, had he still been an MP, they would have recommended a 90 day suspension.^[2] The report stated that Johnson tried to "rewrite the meaning" of COVID rules "to fit his own evidence" for example that "a leaving gathering or a gathering to boost morale was a lawful reason to hold a gathering."^[3] They concluded he was guilty of further contempts of Parliament and that he breached confidentiality requirements by criticising the Committee's provisional findings when he resigned.^[2]

The Commons debated the report on 19 June 2023. Labour forced a vote and the Commons voted 354 to 7 in support, with a large number of abstentions. This was an absolute majority of the Commons. 118 Conservative MPs, including 15 ministers, voted for the report and 225 abstained. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had earlier said he had other commitments, and did not attend the debate and refused to say how he would have voted.