When has Boris Johnson broken the ministerial code in the past?
The former civil service chief warned Boris Johnson that prime ministers must ‘set an example’ and ‘abide by the rules’
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Pressure is mounting on the prime minister to explain how he funded the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat, which reportedly cost up to £200,000.
Questions around whether Boris Johnson breached the ministerial code by failing to declare where the funds came from are also swirling, with Labour calling for a full inquiry.
If Mr Johnson received a gift or loan for the expensive refurbishment and failed to declare it within a month, he will have broken electoral law.
However, Mr Johnson has previously fallen foul of the ministerial code. In 2019, the cross-party parliamentary committee for standards carried out an inquiry into Mr Johnson over a late registration of financial interests.
The inquiry found that Mr Johnson – who was not yet prime minister at the time – was late to register financial interests on two properties.
He was three months late in registering joint ownership of a property in London in 2017, and 11 months late registering his shared interest in a property in Somerset in 2019.
The report said: “Should we conclude in future that Mr Johnson has committed any further breaches of the rules on registration, we will regard this as a matter which may call for more serious sanction.”
It has been claimed that the Conservative Party secretly approved paying the £58,000 bill as long as nine months ago. According to a leaked email, the payment was covered by a Tory donor.
The former civil service chief today warned Boris Johnson that prime ministers must “set an example” and “abide by the rules” as required under the ministerial code.
Lord Gus O’Donnell, who served as the most senior member of the civil service from 2005 to 2011, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that if Mr Johnson wanted to focus on policy instead of the row over sleaze, the best thing he can do is “just obey all the rules”.
“The issue is really whether we expect our MPs, ministers and PMs to obey the rules. If there are a set of rules presumably they are there for a good reason,” he said.
“They can be changed if people think they are wrong. But if they are there we would expect people, and ministers in particular, to obey those rules. They are required under the ministerial code.”
The full money trail will likely be revealed when an updated register of ministerial interests is released, possibly as soon as this week.
Mr Johnson has also been accused of breaching the ministerial code over other recent issues.
Earlier this month, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner alleged Mr Johnson broke the code by using the Downing Street press room to launch an “unprompted political attack” on London mayor Sadiq Khan.
At the end of a Covid briefing, the prime minister claimed he left Transport for London’s (TfL) finances in “robust, good order” and accused Mr Khan of blowing a “black hole” in the transport network’s budget with a fares freeze.
It was also suggested that Mr Johnson may have breached the code when he exchanged WhatsApp messages with James Dyson and offered to “fix” some tax affairs as Mr Dyson’s company built ventilators to assist with the Covid response.
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