Boris Johnson gives evidence in 'partygate' inquiry – watch live

a the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin in shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin in shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin in shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin in shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin shortly the procedure will begin in shortly proceedings will begin shortly proceedings will begin shortly proceedings will begin shortly correct order this is a public

evidence

session of the House of Commons Committee on Privilege the purpose of the privilege committee in this

inquiry

is to decide whether Mr.

Whether or not Johnson misled the House of Commons whether or not he committed contempt of the house and whether or not this was intentional or reckless, this is what the House of Commons has asked us to do by referring this matter to us in the motion that was carried out without a vote against in April last year, fooling the House may sound like a technical problem, but it is a matter of great importance our democracy relies on Parliament scrutinizing legislation and holding the government to account accountable for their actions, we proceed on the basis that what ministers say is correct Parliament expects proactive candor and transparency if what ministers tell us is not the truth we cannot do our job our democracy depends on the trust of that what ministers tell MPS in the House of Commons is the truth and without that trust our whole parliamentary democracy is undermined everyone makes mistakes and when ministers do they are expected to correct it as soon as possible and that is what happens routinely inadvertent deception that is quickly corrected is not a problem that the chamber understands if ministers refuse to respond, for example on matters relating to National Security or market sensitivity, but intentionally deceiving or recklessly or refusing to respond or not correct prevents or frustrates the operation of the house and is contempt during the coveted pandemic, the government and Parliament imposed extensive restrictions on our freedom in the interest of protecting Public Health in this investigation, we are not analyzing the hits or misses of the rules or guidance covered nor by repeating the party gate

inquiry

into the conduct of individual ministers and officials at number 10. what the House has ordered us to look into is whether Mr Johnson told him the truth to Parliament, to the best of its knowledge and belief, on number 10's compliance with those greedy rules and guidance, this is the truth and that is why this investigation goes to the heart of the Trust on which our accountability system depends .

The committee is made up of members of parliament who have been appointed to this position by the House of Commons. The political balance in this committee reflects the political balance in the chamber, which is why the compromise committee is made up of Conservatives and three opposition MPs, including two from Labor and one from the SNP having said that we left our party's interests at the door of the committee room and we did our job in the interest of the chamber that is what we are doing in this investigation and what we will continue to do we are looking at what Mr.

Johnson said to the chamber about the meetings at number 10 whether or not what he said to the camera was correct if and, if so, how quickly and thoroughly any misleading statement was corrected if a statement was misleading, then we will consider whether that was a genuine error or whether it was reckless or intentional and if the record was corrected in time, we have already considered the

evidence

provided by the government, including emails, WhatsApp messages and photos taken at the time and written statements taken under oath from Witnesses present at the relevant times to inform us of what Mr.

Johnson would have known at the time of his statements before the House. There have been many comments about whether the committee is relying on material from Sue Gray's report. We are not relying on any such material and we will not be doing so last November either. we decided to collect direct first hand evidence from all witnesses under oath and all of this has been revealed to Mr. Johnson Sue gray is not a witness we have followed the standing orders of the chamber and the Precedence as advised by our secretaries by the speakers Council and by Sir Ernest Ryder former statutory appeal judge we have not changed the rules or procedure that is not within our remit they are set by the house we are bound to follow them and that is what we have done in our report on March 3, we set out the main topics that we will be asking Mr.

Johnson about. Today we will talk about the rules and the guidance, as Mr. Johnson told the 10th house that he complied with both. When we refer to the rules, we mean the regulations established by the house that have the force of law and under which notices of fixed fines were issued, the guidance is a guidance issued by the government, for example, when Mr. Johnson he was talking about hands, face, space, he was referring to the guidance on social distancing when he said space based on information that is in the public domain and evidence that the committee has received and in the context of what Mr.

Johnson said to the House of Commons, we will establish what covid-related rules and guidance applied at the relevant time Mr Johnson's knowledge of those rules and guidance Mr Johnson's Act of Attendance or knowledge of gatherings that were not socially distanced and those for which fixed penalty notices were issued Mr. Johnson spoke on the issue of the coveted compliance at number 10 in the House of Commons more than 30 times, most notably on December 1, 2021 on December 8, 2021 and on May 25, 2022 I would like us all to have a reminder now of some of what Mr Johnson said in Parliament in response to questions, starting if we may with a question from the Leader of the Opposition on December 1 , when millions of people went into lockdown last year, it was a Christmas party organized in Downing Street for dozens of people on December 18th, Mr President, what could you tell the honorable gentleman is that all the guidance was followed in full during the number 10 but i repeat mr president i have been repeatedly assured since these allegations surfaced that there was no party and there was no covid rule breaking and that is what i have been repeatedly assured i apologize i apologize for uh for the impression that it's come to, uh, that the staff at Dining Street don't take it so seriously. rules that the prime minister has been caught red handed why don't you end the investigation right now by simply admitting it because mr president i have been repeatedly assured that no no thank you mr president the prime minister will tell the camera if there was a party in downing street on 13th november speaker no but i'm sure and no matter what the instructions were followed and the rules were followed and i'm happy to go on record now that when i said i came to this house and i said in all sincerity that the rules and guidance would be followed at all times was what i believed to be true certainly was the case when i was present at Staff Release Meetings and the house will note my attendance at these very brief moments as they were not found to be outside the rules but clearly this was not the case for some of those meetings after I left and at other meetings when I wasn't even in the building thank you why Mr Johnson told Parliament that no rules or guidelines were broken in #10. when we have evidence that he knew what the rules and guidelines were and was present at the Meetings where those rules and guidelines were broken, we have yet to reach our conclusions on this investigation and I won't until we hear and consider the evidence from Mr.

Johnson today, the evidence we already have raises clear questions and this is Mr. Johnson's opportunity to give us his answers. Will the secretary of the committee please administer the oath I am about to take? the bible and read the terms of the eighth yes i swear to almighty god the evidence i will give for this committee will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me god thank you so much mr

johnson

you gave me the committee to affirm that the content of that statement is true. Thank you Mr. Johnson, please make your opening statement.

Thank you, President, if I may before I begin. at 2 2 21 um I hope you don't mind if I come back I mean it will break but what I'm going to say is we are a parliamentary committee and parliament continues if there is a vote called which we expect I will adjourn to allow the members vote and we can pick up where we left off, but thanks for reminding everyone. Thank you, thank you, thank you, President. 20-month period of Downing Street Meetings that went past the point where they could be said to be necessary for business purposes that was wrong I am bitterly sorry I understand the public anger and continue to apologize for what happened under my

watch

and I take full responsibility, but as you just said, President, the purpose of this investigation is not to reopen the so-called party door, but to find out whether or not I lied to Parliament, deliberately misled my colleagues and the country about what I knew and believed. those Meetings when I said the rules and guidance in number 10 had been followed.

I am here to tell you from my heart that I did not lie to the house when those statements were made, they were made in good faith and in good faith. the basis of what I honestly knew and believed at the time this investigation began. He was quite sure that he would find nothing to prove. I was confident in the cover-up because I knew that was what I believed and that's why I said it to understand why I believed it, you have to go back to a time before the Sue Gray report before the police investigation to a time when, as the evidence before the committee shows that there was a near universal belief in number 10 that the rules and guidance were being adhered to, that is the general belief that has been uncovered by their evidence and it was that belief that governed what I said in the house and As soon as it was clear that I was wrong and as soon as the Sugary inquiry and the Metropolitan Police inquiry were concluded, I came to the House of Commons and corrected the record as I promised I would.

Clearly I couldn't have anticipated the outcome by coming sooner because I didn't really know what the outcome would be and I was shocked when tickets were issued, especially since Sue Gray had told me on a couple of occasions that she didn't think the threshold had been reached. criminality. I think the committee's work helps explain why I was so surprised that you've been looking into this for over 10 months and I appreciate what you've done, you've had access to a huge amount of evidence that you've collected and reviewed. hundreds of pages of transcripts of sugray's interviews and has analyzed many thousands of contemporaneous emails and whatsapp messages and other material found nothing to show that i was warned in advance that the events at number 10 were illegal in fact nothing to prove that someone created anxiety with me about any event either before or after it took place, if there had been that much anxiety about a rule breaking event in issue 10 I would have been escalated without a doubt, we all knew how vital it was to keep public confidence in the fight. against kovid that we should do what we were asking the public to do there is only one exception of course and that is the testimony of Dominic Cummings which is not supported by any documentary evidence and which clearly cannot be trusted has every reason to lie, not only has the committee found nothing incriminating,he gathered a lot of evidence that shows very clearly that those working on number 10 shared my belief that the rules and guidance were being followed and that I received assurances that there was no rule that would break a number 10. the best thing now would be for the committee to publish all the evidence it has gathered so that Parliament and the public can judge for themselves despite my repeated requests the committee has refused to do this as investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury, he is chosen only to publish the evidence it deems incriminating and not the evidence I rely on, I am answering the charges, and despite assurances that we would be allowed to add material we relied on to the main package released last night today, we were told that the committee was unwilling to publish a large number of extracts which I rely on in my defense which is grossly unfair and, in the absence of evidence that I deliberately misled Parliament, the committee tries to argue that I should have known that instructions were not being followed and that I buried and buried in my head while we were fighting Kovid was an unarticulated belief that even if we followed the rules, we were somehow failing to follow the guidance and in your fourth report you suggested that it must have been obvious to me because you have the photographs so let me deal with this I point out head on because it is nonsense these photos have been waved through the media for over a year and it seems to be the opinion of the committee and unfortunately many members of the public that I show me attending rule breaking parties where no one went social distancing show none of that show me saying a few words of thanks at a work event for a colleague who is leaving show me with my red box passing by on my way to another meeting or returning to my floor to continue working often late at night show some people standing together as allowed by guidance where full social distancing is not possible and where mitigation measures are taken show events I have never been ticketed for attend I know that the public will have had the impression that these were covert photos with their sinister pixelations that have been obtained by the media, the vast majority were in fact taken by the official photographer number 10 to say that we would have carried out illegal events in number 10 while allowing these events to be immortalized by an official photographer is staggeringly implausible.

There are a couple of photos where the event is captured on Zoom as well as by the official photographer which only reinforces the point if we were having an event with him that we thought was illicit or unauthorized why would we have him on Zoom when? you never know who is the most important on the other side if it was obvious to me that these events were contrary to guidance and rules, then it must have been equally obvious to dozens of other people, including the country's most important officials. all of them like me responsible for writing the rules and it must have been obvious to others in the building including the current order from the prime minister we will now suspend the city while the house of commons votes and we will reconvene in 15 minutes thank you foreign order disappointed order now we will resume this test session Mr.

Johnson, would you like to resume your opening statement? we would have had unlawful or unauthorized gatherings in the presence of an official photographer going on to say most important of all if it was obvious to me that these events were contrary to guidance and rules then it must have been equally obvious to dozens of others including the most important officials in the country, all of them, most like me, responsible for writing the rules and it must have been obvious to others in the building, including the current prime minister, to the contrary, the overwhelming evidence that you have assembled is that these people believe that the rules and guidance were followed and what is so revealing is the number of officials saying the same thing and the total silence of the written or electronic record on the concerns that someone wanted to raise with me one thing would be if the committee had come here today and said, look here are the emails or here are the whatsapps that show that they warned him about breaking the rules before making his statements on camera, he does not have such evidence because that never happened, but if he now says in change that should have been obvious that we were going against the rules and guidance, so let's be clear about what you're saying, you're not just accusing me of lying, you're accusing all those civilians.

MPS advisor servants to lie about what they believed at the time was going on and to my knowledge, you are not giving any of them a chance to explain themselves with their own oral evidence. I don't think he intends to seriously accuse. these people to lie and I don't think you can seriously pretend to accuse me of lying now you all know that there are some features of this procedure that are extremely peculiar they are the greatest respect for you the president but you have said a few things on this matter before you read the evidence that is clearly and wrongly prejudicial or prejudicial to the very issue on which you are judging.

I'm going to chalk up his earlier comments to the general push and pull of politics and trust what he's emphasized all along. the impartiality the committee insists on and then sits on in their report, in fact the committee is supposed to be strictly looking into what I said about breaking the rules rather than non-statutory guidance so much of it this questioning is theoretically irrelevant, but I am going to take it easy because I agree with what you have said in the asset it is your work in which I want to help you understand why I said what I said to Parliament and whether I deliberately set out to mislead and I emphatically did not your first concern is that I may have knowingly or recklessly misled Parliament on December 1 and 8 when I said the rules had not been broken and the guidance had been fully followed in number 10. when I said those words I was not trying to cover up or hide anything I said what I said in good faith based on what I honestly knew and reasonably believed at the time that belief was in my head based on my understanding of the rules and the guidance that did not mean that I believed that social distancing was perfectly adhered to because I and others in the building did not believe that it was necessary or possible to have a two-meter or one-meter electrified force field after June 24, 2020 around every human being, in fact that is emphatically not what the guidance specifically prescribes that social distancing should be maintained where possible given the work environment and it is clear that in number 10 we had real difficulties both working efficient and fast way as to maintain perfect social distancing, it's a narrow cramped 18th century terraced house, we had no choice but to meet day in and day out, seven days a week in a relentless battle against covid. having social distancing we avoided physical contact we were pacing in hallways and on stairs we gave each other the widest pair we could but it would have been impossible to have a drill sergeant measuring the distance between us all hours of the day and night as well as it's prescribed by the guidance, we had mitigations when I talked about the guidance being followed, I was thinking about all the things we did to stop the spread of covid since we were working, we had a large number of people working from home, we had a lot of meetings, at least partially on Zoom, we had limits on the number of people per room, we had sanitizer dispensers everywhere, we had signs on the walls telling you which way to walk, we kept the windows open, and we worked outside as much as possible due to the particular difficulties caused. because of the working environment we had regular testing and I think a whole testing system was put in place on the third floor that went well beyond what was required in the guide so if you say how could I run in Parliament and be so adamant about following the guide what was he thinking that is what he was thinking and I know as he just did he will point to the photos and then the guide and what I said and say that it must have been obvious that he was breaking the guidance, but that's simply not true.

My beliefs and comments to Parliament were indeed based on my knowledge of those events, but you must understand how I saw them and what I saw. During the period that I was there, the vast majority of the events that the committee relies on are events that I attended for 10 or 15 minutes, maybe a maximum of 25 in one case to say goodbye to a colleague who is leaving. I know people all over the country will look at those events and think they look very nice of events that we or I were banning everyone else, but I will believe until the day I die that it was my job to thank the staff for what they did. fact especially during a crisis like kovid that kept coming back and seemed to have no end and when people's morale started to sink but no matter what i believe the most important point is that the police agreed that they didn't they found my attending any of these farewell parties to be against the rules which I obviously didn't know at the time any of these events then escalated beyond what was legal after I left of course there is a event for which myself and the current PM received notices of flat fines, but it never occurred to me or I believe to the current PM at the time that the event was in breach of the rules and guidance around 2:22 PM. m. on June 19, 2020.

I entered the cabinet room where I worked after returning from a long external visit. I stopped at my desk briefly before another covid meeting. started and ate some kind of salad several officials came in to wish me a happy birthday no one sang the famous Union Jack cake it stayed in its tupperware without me noticing and then it was discovered and eaten by my private secretaries we talked as you would expect about kovid and what What we were doing to beat the pandemic is a measure of how innocent we thought this gathering was that an exaggerated or slightly exaggerated version of the times with singing and pie-eating was reported, and yet apparently nothing untoward was detected by the reporter either. or by millions of eagle-eyed readers, so when I talked to commoners it did not occur to me for one second on December 1st or 8th or for one second for one second that this event the only event the only event so I was later found to be against the rules in some way and the same goes for all the events I attended, I believed we were following the rules and guidance to the best of our ability under the circumstances and that was the than the required guidance, you can now say that you were being obtuse or obtuse and that we should have enforced social distancing more ruthlessly and we can make the case that hindsight back and forth is a wonderful thing, we are talking about what you believed at the time in as for the event on December 18, 2020 at The Press Room i was not there but my honest belief that it was within the rules was based on what the senior advisors told me the fact that this was my honest belief is supported due to the fact that so many other people honestly believed that we were doing nothing wrong and it is very clear from the evidence produced by the committee that they were all operating with the same understanding of the rules and guidance if you want more evidence of what what was going on in my head look at jack doyle on whatsapp where i positively urge him to tell the truth to the public the truth about the event on december 18 seems so unfair to me based on what i was told the event was going billing it as a purely social gathering event on what I knew would be a monumentally busy day for the media department as they were grappling with both the emergence that day of the Kent variant of kovid and what some saw as the risk of a no-win Brexit.

Okay, that's why I was inclined to believe that this event should be in line with the rules and guidance and that's why I said what I said on December 1 as far as my statements on December 8, the committee is concerned that there may be cheated on the house when I said that I was repeatedly assured that the event was according to the rules. I don't understand this point. You can see from the evidence that I received these guarantees more than once and from more than one person. My statement was completely accurate. The committee criticizes the fact. that i had not received guarantees in relation to the orientation but i never said that i had said what i said about the orientation based on my own experience and belief the committee criticizes the fact that i did not receive guarantees in relation to any other event any event that did not may it be the 18th december event but i never said i had the committee seems to be saying sometimes in its fourth report that i shouldn't trust the advice of political advisers or even civil servants this is ridiculous i was the prime minister of the ukI was trying to run the country during a pandemic on the afternoon of November 30, 2021 I was dealing with the emergence of Omicron variants and the growing clamor for restrictions on another Christmas I couldn't stop what I was doing get up and go and institute a personal investigation into what sounded like evidence from the Daily Mirror about an event that was now almost a year old that I had to trust and had every right to trust what my trusted superior told me the government of advisers would come to a standstill if the ministers could not do it finally the committee criticizes the way I corrected the record I corrected the record on the day of Sue Gray's final report and six days after the completion of the police investigation if the committee My point of view is that it should have come to the house and providing an inevitably incomplete account while conducting a government or police investigation involving events he had not even attended.

I fundamentally disagree at all times. I was completely transparent with the house that I made. Clearly I did not intend to comment on any of the factual issues until after the investigation had concluded, I kept the House updated regularly and as soon as the investigations were complete I provided a full correction of my honest but inadvertently misleading statements. we were wrong. I think the officials at number 10 in the cabinet office, in fact, all the departments in Whitehall should be immensely proud of their efforts to protect this country from a disgusting disease when I point out to this committee that this disease nearly killed me. kills, it's just to emphasize how seriously I took the steps we needed to stop it from spreading, as I think everyone at 10 Downing Street did, it was those officials who organized and led the country through the lockdowns that, whatever people say about them now, they were essential to public health.

It was those officials who procured the vaccines who ensured that this was the first country in the world to put an approved and effective vaccine in a patient's arm and it was those officials who helped Mastermind achieve the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe thanks to those officials that we were able to get out of lockdown faster than any other European country with all the social and economic benefits that implied and still have a lower excess mortality or a lower excess mortality rate than many other countries comparables that I am proud to have known and worked with those officials during one of the most difficult times in living memory.

I'm proud to have given them leadership and that's what I think I was doing at each of the events in question and I trust the committee will be fair to them. fair to me fair to the evidence about what we and I knew and believed and conclude that I did not deliberately mislead the House of Commons or recklessly mislead the House of Commons and that no contempt has been committed of my turn for our questions the only issue that you raised about what your lawyers wrote to me on Monday and that I responded to this this morning about that you raised the issue of the importance of the committee being fair to officials and we would very much agree with you on that and it is which is why we were not content to put into evidence the interview notes that officials gave to Sue Gray until those officials had an opportunity to verify those interview notes and agree on whether they are accurate and can then be supported by a statement.

Really, which is like an oath and can then be presented to us as evidence if you want to identify some officials and some aspects of this sugary interview. the investigation doesn't end with this session of all the tests, he's perfectly in Liberty to do that and I would invite him to do that and we can consider that, um, thank you. we wish um to elucidate and um uh it will be helpful to get it right thank you and now we are putting into the public domain your lawyer's letter to me and also my response to you this morning so that people can be clear on that now we will start our questions starting with those covering the six Meetings the committee believes are most relevant to our inquiry when asked in the House of Commons about meetings at No 10 from 21 December 2021 onwards, he told the chamber that the covid rules and guidance were followed fully and at all times after the May 2022 publication of the report you commissioned in Meetings at Government Facilities, continues to maintain that the rules and guidance were indeed followed in the Meetings I had attended to say goodbye to the staff leaving number 10.

We will let you know what the coven rules and guidance were on those six dates, what they knew about the Meetings that took place on each of those dates, and their compliance with the rules and guidance at that time. In effect, we will begin by looking at two Exit Meetings you attended in November 2020. We will primarily focus on compliance of these meetings with covid workplace guidance in effect at the time these meetings took place during a national lockdown in england the legal rules applied to prevent the spread of covid included restrictions on indoor gatherings of two or more people the workplace guidance applied at the time stated that there should be social distancing of two meters in the workplace at all times that it was possible and that only absolutely necessary participants should physically attend meetings I I will now invite Sir Bernard Jenkins to ask the first question, Mr Bernard, thank you, Chairman um, just as the Chairman described, we will first consider what knowledge he had of the rules and guidance in effect at the time of each of the events you attended or were aware of by reminding us what you were telling the country about the rules and guidance and then we'll ask you about those meetings now that you were aware of the importance of following the guidance the government had issued to keep workplaces safe, in fact he previously told the House of Commons on 2nd September 2020 and I quote that it is very important that we get people back to the workplace safely and without quotes and then on November 9, 2020 less than a week before the first of the Meetings that I will do. ask him about what he said at a covid press conference and I quote that neither mass testing nor vaccine progress is currently a substitute for national restrictions for social distancing and everything else, so it's even more important to follow the rules are not in quotes and at press conferences during this period he regularly repeated the phrase hands face space while standing at podiums bearing this phrase so there can be no doubt that he understood what they meant the guidelines and the rules and that they were meant to achieve yes or no yes thank you.

On November 13, 2020, we saw that Catherine West was just asking about the previous movie. There was an impromptu departure from the Gathering pure, then communications director Lee Kane. This took place in the lobby outside the press office at number 10. There were between 15 and 20 people present and you made a speech and the evidence for this is on page nine of the evidence packet. Do you accept that these facts are correct? Yes, now we will show the images on which you have made the comments of her, but nevertheless. we will ask you about them the non-pixelated photos are on pages 540 and 580 in the total evidence packet the images show you with at least six or eight other people standing very close I want to ask first about compliance with these meetings with the guidance that he told the House of Commons recently, on May 25, 2022, which was the day of the publication of the Sucre report, which was and I certainly quote the case strong words that the guidance had been followed in the Meetings to those who attended to fire staff at least once, but the photographs show the lack of social distancing of two meters required by the orientation of the workplace at that time, could you accept that we are present at this Meeting and that the people were not socially distanced while you were there? thank you very much sir sir bernards uh i don't accept that uh people weren't making an effort to socially distance from each other and that happened uh all the time at number 10. actually i think the uh the guidance uh for november uh 2020 uh stipulated that you should uh maintain uh uh one meter uh social distancing uh where possible uh with mitigation where two meters is not feasible and at all stages the guidance was intended to be implemented uh where possible and that is absolutely clear from the guidance, as I said in my introduction, it was always the case that we understood that, uh, confine the limits of the number 10, we're going to make it impossible all the time to enforce a total uh social distancing uh, if you will, with an electrical force field around each individual now this meeting uh happened immediately on the spur of the moment it had to happen uh it happened because on November 13th two high ranking members of and people ask why was this happening why was it necessary it was necessary because two senior members of staff, uh, the actual chief of staff and the director of communications had left the building or were about to leave the building under rather acrimonious circumstances or potentially acrimonious circumstances it was important for me to be there and give peace of mind and the salient point i would venture to make is that after that Meeting i was not fined my presence there was felt by the Met to be uh not illegal they agreed it was a work related event.

I think it was absolutely essential for work purposes. Well, I'm asking about orientation right now. Yeah, so I tell them I think the guidance is what they should understand when I looked at that group it didn't occur to me for a second that we were breaking the guidance given the logistical difficulties we faced at number 10 and the need to have meetings Urgent like this and I mean you said hey you. To begin with, you didn't fully answer my question because you suggested that the image doesn't show that people weren't making an effort to comply with the guidance.

I only ask if the evidence is that the guideline was met. and I think I think I suggest I think I think the guidance is being adhered to correctly okay because I'll get to that because um it must have occurred to him that since they weren't socially distancing at two meters that they might have breached the guidance of social distancing either while you were at the Gathering or well or actually when you reflected on this afterwards when the storm raged around your head you must have been thinking well I wonder if that was actually meeting the guidance that must have happened , so Bernard, forgive me, but I have to correct you on a technical point, but after June 20, June 24, 2020, the guidance was changed so that the goal was to maintain social distancing. uh a uh with one meter with mitigations where two meters was not I'll get to that I'll get to that but I think the point the first point is that it's fair to say that you didn't say that we made every effort to comply with the House of Loss guidance Commons and you didn't say no I'm saying follow the guidance completely because you can't it might be ok we'll get to this in a minute but you can't um you can't expect humans in an environment like number 10, uh, have like it's an invisible electric fence around you; breached the guidance means it meant we were following the guidance to the best of our ability, which is what the guidance provided and the guidance provides uh liberties within the practical framework of the operation or the business uh to decide how you are going to implement the guidance, the The measures that you referred to at the beginning are things that generally have to be adhered to, there were companies that were entitled and they were asked to decide what practical considerations they want to give to implement the guidance and that's what we did that's what we did I can say so that people understand why i believed because this is the crucial thing if i can say why i believed when i stood up on december 1st that the guidance was followed completely at all times what image was in my head and why doesn't that conflict with that picture the answer is i knew from my direct personal experience that we were doing a lot to stop the spread of covid inside the building we had sanitizers we had windows kept open we had people working outdoors wherever they could we had zoom meetings we had restrictions on a number of people in the rooms we had perspex screens between the desks and above all, as I said, we had regular tests tests that went well beyond what was prescribed by the guideline and which in my opinion helped mitigate the difficulties we had to maintain perfect social distancing.

I must say that if you said all that at that time to the House ofCommons, we probably wouldn't. sitting here but he didn't and the question is, um, the question is about what the guide actually says and I notice that he takes a little bit of advice at that point on the guide question can I just read to him or is he in the page six of the packet what the guidance actually says should maintain social distancing in the workplace whenever possible where social distancing guidelines cannot be followed in relation to a particular activity companies should consider whether that activity will be redesigned to maintain a social distance of two meters or one meter with risk mitigations where two meters are not reliable and mitigations include the use of screens or barriers to separate people from each other so that those screens or barriers are in the image the screens or barriers in the I believe in the adjacent pressure of memory well this is an impromptu meeting where I am thanking the staff at least one staff member for their contribution during covid uh I think that was an important part of my job doing that was the best place to do it i accept i accept that perfect social distancing is not being respected so bernard but that doesn't mean that in my opinion what we were doing is inconsistent with the guidance that guidance allows specifically, uh, for workplace liberties to decide how to implement it and operational conditional is where possible now don't believe for a moment that the people in number 10 didn't operate social distancing because they did and they took a lot after they went to great lengths on me uh in my opinion to me I remember to stay apart from each other but that didn't mean they could stay apart all the time that's what I'm saying that didn't conflict with guidance no one you were devaluing the efforts of no one at number 10 during the coveted, including you, by the way, and the public service you provided during your term as prime minister during the pandemic or asked us to do so, I'm afraid it is our obligation.

I'm trying to explain to you via a question um all I'm saying is we need to figure out to establish in our minds whether what he told the House of Commons was strictly accurate and the guidance goes on to say where the social distancing guidelines don't can be fully followed even by redesigning a particular business activity You should consider whether that activity must continue for the business to operate and, if so, take all possible mitigation measures to reduce the effect of transmission risk between the business. staff now no one disputes that it is the right thing for you to thank your staff the question is whether what you said about this particular way of thanking your staff in the House of Commons was strictly accurate and in fact we may have been misleading , that's what we're asking, well I don't think so, not for a second. which was the orientation doesn't say uh you can have a thank you party and a lot of people are fine if you think it's very important to thank people the guy just doesn't say that, just, just, just, let's go back. that uh I I believed that this event was uh not only reasonably necessary but essential for work purposes for the reasons that I have given uh I have described the limitations in which we were operating in number 10. uh if you would like to have a quick meeting to thank people this was the place to do it uh actually not that many people uh there. perfect social distance, sure, but the public can't see that, yeah, the public can't see that, yeah. and i said the guideline was fully followed.

I wasn't thinking about that event and thinking that somehow that contravened guidance at all. We were trying very hard to follow the guide that was my memory and that's why I said what I said that this is exactly the purpose of this session: you can present the case that you are presenting. Can we move on to examine compliance with the covid rules of this Meeting? As we heard in the previous clips, she told the house the rules. they were followed at all times, so she must have thought the Meeting was reasonably necessary for business purposes, as the regulations required. it was within the rules.

I thought it was essential for work purposes or Reason at least reasonably necessary for work purposes because for the reason that I have given to Mr. Bernard that November 13th was a day when two senior officials in those senior advisors in the government had left their jobs in very, very difficult and challenging circumstances and it was necessary to stabilize the ship it was necessary to show that there was no uh no ranker uh that uh government business was going on that's what we had to do that's what I had to do do I know but it's what you said about it for the House of Commons is what matters um we know it was a farewell event for a member of staff the pictures we just saw yeah they don't seem to show any actual work being done doing why didn't it occur to you that at least it might have broken the rules at least because it wasn't reasonably necessary for the purposes of the job you said did it occur to me that it might not be it was reasonably necessary for the workbooks yes no I don't know a second happened okay but it wasn't reasonably necessary to work that particular way and say that particular thing about the way that event was carried out and you really know that to this day and as I said earlier, I have a hard time seeing how I could having executed number 10, executing hundreds of officials who should be thanked and appreciated for their work in very difficult circumstances without having a brief goodbye. events of a sort that, uh, at least as far as my participation was concerned, didn't break the rules, let's remember that key point about that event.

I gave a short speech, what I did was not be in a situation right now because how long you were in the meeting is not a question. issue of imperfect social distancing um social distancing hands face space which is the part of the space is it two meters right now or is it one meter with mitigations two meters two meters where possible two meters or one meter with Asians which is to maintain the social distancing whenever possible, which is the notion of less than perfect and imperfect social distancing because you were saying yes, country doing social distancing despite people's observance of social distancing, there were times when people moved within a meter or two of each other, that is, I'm afraid, unavoidable and we had a particular problem in number 10 because, as I said before. we had to call meetings at high speed, we had a lot of staff that had to come into the building, uh, because we needed to, uh, get a variety of input even though we had lots and lots of people on Zoom as well and it was we didn't have as you know because you have gone to look at it uh we had a lot of messy hallways uh pickles where uh it wasn't and spaces where it wasn't always easy to maintain a perfect social distance that I didn't mean to like that space there it's ok people make hallways yeah you could refer yourself to the next question from sir bernard which of course an event, um, there were a lot of people who were leading critical organizations across the country and left to do for everyone else across the country.

It wasn't acceptable by the guidelines, all the rules, so why was it acceptable and necessary for work purposes at number 10? it looks like an uh a social event it wasn't a social event i was if anyone thinks i was partying during lockdown they're dead wrong that wasn't a party i was there i didn't say it was a party mr

johnson

well actually you did before, uh, what I was doing was thanking the staff or thanking a particular person for their contribution and, uh, I think that was my job, uh, so if they asked you at a press conference with their Podium saying hands face space space if it was okay for organizations to hold non-socially distanced farewell meetings in the workplace what would you have said it is up to the organizations, as the guidance says, to decide how and they are going to implement the guidance among which they are You find, of course, social distancing where they can't do social distancing, uh, perfectly, they can't keep two meters or one meter, so they're entitled to have mitigations and that's what the guidance says and actually we had a lot of mitigations including and as I told you before this was exceptional in number 10 we had a lot of testing so the answer is I would have said ok no I said the answer is you have to do what the guide says. and the guidance says that where you put mitigations uh where you do what is uh possible uh so uh and where you follow social distancing in a way that is uh that reflects the realities of your work space that will meet the guidance that was my point of view and I think that's what everyone else understood certainly that and just repeat this point this is what everyone understood I believe in number 10. it's for a long period of 20 months of the fight against covid during which we were having, as the Prime Minister himself said, describing the experience of going into a bunch of rooms and finding a lot of people there.

It was just part of working at number 10 that we were going to come into contact with a large number of people, but people followed social distancing and were very aware of it. Now fast forward to November 27, 2020. This was another unscheduled farewell meeting for a different special counsel that again took place in the lobby outside the press office at number 10. and we have three witness statements attesting to the lack of social distancing at this event, we have and this is on page 17 of your witness panel, we have Jack Doyle who is your press secretary at the time and subsequently or the director of communications said that certainly over 20 people attended and accept that I I I I don't know uh I wasn't at that event and it wasn't an event that was found to be in breach with the world, there's no reason to discuss it, well I know because we've all seen the same evidence, uh, package , although I think this is actually one of the things that you have, uh, that we've not been allowed to point out, I think. there i think there is evidence uh from at least one of the uh of the participants that uh even though they were there there weren't that many uh people now and it lasted a very uh a very short time well by all means make sure that got our attention oh sorry, this is the clear event uh sorry sorry you must have mentioned it many times. at that event but i was there very briefly i was going to correct thank you so i was at that event but i was there very briefly uh no no uh fines were issued for that event order order i'm afraid we have to adjourn committee again 15 minute foreign evidence session subverted um just at one point you were questioning um the meaning of the guide which says whenever possible but not with respect to less than a meter where mitigations are mandatory huh that's not whenever possible it doesn't say mitigations whenever possible, they're essential if you can't do six feet and we couldn't see any mitigation in the pictures, but also, sorry, if you'll excuse me, what the guide says, as far as I can see, is what it assures workers. maintain social distancing guidelines or two meters or a meeting with risk mitigation where two meters is not feasible whenever possible, so that conditional, whenever possible, governs both two meters and one meter, okay, we'll address that point in our report we will consider what you are and the following and that I don't think we agree with your interpretation of the guide that, well I can say whatever your that is very important whatever your interpretation of the guide means maybe what matters if i may respectfully say is what i believed our efforts to follow the lead had been why i thought they were credible and wholeheartedly and what i was thinking at the time i guess i ask you to allow sir Bernard ask your next question of course thank you very much um we were talking about the statements of the three witnesses uh or about the event on November 27, 2020 which was a main event for another special counsel at festival number 10 where there were certainly over 20 people um and I think they accepted that um can I come back to that okay Stephanie I think so there is conflicting evidence on that point and if you look if you look at what Sue Gray has to say she says 15 to 20 um but we do not trust two tests of Gray is not.

That's ironic, um, um, so you say that evidence is invalid. has given us that it has not been accepted, it would be helpful if I presented my evidence on that, well, no, I think it would be very helpful if there was something in the witness statements of Sue Gray, uh, that was collected in the notes of the interview. separately, as the president described it, I think it would be helpful if Sir Bernard could ask your question and you would give him a synchronized answer, so you'll see also on page 17 of your packet that another witness stated that they were unable to get through the room to leave because people were standing four to five people deep.

Is there any reason why we shouldn't believe that? well i have seenthat i've seen all the testimonials about this event and there's testimonials of uh there's the suga evidence i mentioned and i find it pretty incredible that now we can't narrow down what he said after extensively interviewing people who he said were 15 to 20 uh people uh she thought of that event it is also the case that the person who was leaving on that occasion uh Claire Watson I think we can we can name her uh according to my understanding uh she said it was a group of officials and they landed which lasted very little time and she's and she said I think there was a um a speech of mine that lasted 45 seconds in a speech of hers that lasted 15 seconds um from memory um certainly i was there very briefly and to get to your point it's about if the quote you have about that event actually does not match my own memory, the rich appointment is this one of the four or five people deep and more than 20 people attended.

In fact, I remember quite a bit like me. The event is much more in line with what Cleo Watson has to say and what Sue Gray said about the event ok find it you'll see it on page 20 in the 17 year old packet another witness said you joked during the Meeting. which was and I'm quoting probably the least socially distanced gathering in the UK at the moment, I'm quoting from paragraph 63 of your evidence, uh, your written submission, you say you don't remember saying those particular words, therefore you deny that you said this, I don't remember saying those words and I think it's unlikely that he would have said those words given what I had to tell the committee a moment ago about my recollection of the event when I have a visual recollection of the event. which was much more like Claire Watson describes it uh it was a group of people around that table the same table you just looked at I don't remember people being four or five deep I don't remember saying what I'm going to say Sorry, you are giving very long answers and it is taking more time than we need and it is repeating itself a lot can we continue with the questions?

I don't deny that you said this but you don't remember saying it I think it's unlikely that I said that because I didn't say things about social distancing you answered the question you also stated in your um written presentation of paradise 63 and I quote it's possible that you've made remarks in speeches about social distancing in quotes so what kind of remarks could you have made remarks about the importance of social distancing as it was very much on our minds ok but how correct would that be? be to conclude that you can't be sure what you didn't comment on about the lack of social distancing um and at this or any of the other meetings you've attended because otherwise why would you have brought it up?

I'm sorry I do not understand. the question is you're not denying it you could have said it would be fairly fair to conclude that uh you did comment on the lack of social distancing at events it's pretty quick it certainly would have likely brought attention to the importance of social distancing since the importance of social distancing was very high if everyone obeyed social distancing obviously it is because, as we have just discussed extensively, there could be times where people were gathering at high speed and where social distancing was observed in a very imperfect, that wasn't to say that I thought the guidance wasn't being followed, but given all that I've said above about observing social distancing where possible, well, you accept that the evidence that we have under the Truth statement um that uh indicates that those who were at this Gathering indicate very clearly that there was not enough social distancing at this Gathering accept that I say some of them do some of them some of them don't and who established that you were familiar with the social distancing guidance that you in the Meetings there was a lack of social distancing so it must have been obvious to you at the time and even more obvious on reflection afterwards as this all erupted around you that you were violating workplace guidance relating to social distancing no what no that's not correct what I thought was that we had done everything we could to implement the guidance and in fact we had fully and completely implemented it but clearly when it came to things like social distancing , as the guide explicitly states.

It's not possible at all times to have perfect social distancing and that you could have mitigations, but recently on May 25th you said that was certainly the case. it was adhered to throughout but I think now you're saying it was imperfect I'm sorry and what I'm trying to do there is a confusion between social distancing and the guidance the guidance understands social distancing among other things and what what we were trying to do. was to follow the guidance to the best of our ability, which meant that sometimes social distancing could not be perfectly observed. There were other mitigations we implemented and the guidance also said that only necessary participants participants should physically attend meetings in the workplace absolutely necessary participants usually said generally when you try when you attended these events uh when you didn't even know who I was attending how are you so sure that everyone was absolutely necessary to attend these events Bernard these events were uh of course not organized by me personally I relied on my excellent staff to make sure we had the right people in the chat room, okay, thank you, now we'll move on to look at two Meetings that took place in early 2020, which you attended, Mr.

Johnson, we'll look at the Meeting that took place on June 19, 2020. This was a meeting in the cabinet room to commemorate his birthday. We will also see the Meeting that took place on May 20, 2020, which was a meeting for the staff at number 10. Garden, yes, the current legal regulations to prevent the spread of covid varied between May and June 2020, but in Both times the relevant regulations included restrictions on gatherings of two or more people. The labor guide in force at that time established that there should be social distancing. of two meters in the workplace whenever possible and that only absolutely necessary participants should physically attend meetings.

Now I'm going to invite Yvonne Forvard to ask our questions about these meetings and I would ask her if she could because we've already covered quite a bit of the brand. if she could answer as succinctly as possible, of course, because I may be repeating, thank you, Mr. Johnson, before I ask my questions. Can we reconfirm her knowledge of the current rules and guidance by reminding ourselves of what she is telling us? country, told the House of Commons on May 11 that, and I quote, if you must go to work and you cannot work from home, you must do so as long as your workplace is safely covered and you observe the rules about social distancing that we are posting. more guidance on that also told the house on May 11 that people should limit contact with others and keep their distance to two meters apart when possible, that was just a week before the May 20 Gathering And then on June 10, just over a week before the June 19 meeting, he said at a Covid news conference.

I quote, I urge everyone to continue to show restraint and abide by the rules that are designed to keep us all safe, so please repeat what you say. I've heard it so many times before be vigilant, maintain social distancing and keep washing your hands. You agree to the rules in effect at the time. and the guide is a problem we will show images of this meeting on the screen and the non-pixelated photos are on pages 359 and 414 in the total evidence package one the images show that he attended a meeting in the cabinet room that day to mark your birthday with at least 17 other people present now those in attendance included your wife and your interior designer, didn't they?

They certainly included my wife and son and yes, there was a contractor that was working in the building who poked his head around the very briefly notified for this event and just confirmed that at least two people who were not co-workers attended why? did you think this was reasonably necessary for work purposes as required by the rules at the time, but this was an event that took place, as you say, on my birthday. He was returning from a long external visit. a happy birthday you recently recovered from kovid illness and i thought that was a perfectly fine thing to do we were about to have another meeting and it was largely the same staff and presumably a wife and the contractor went away we are not going to attend to that meeting, it's one of the peculiarities of number 10 that my prime minister and his family

live

in the same building and, uh, my understanding of the rules is that, uh, the process that the family has the right to use that building and use each part of the building planning notes as guidance regarding that event the workplace guidance covered at the time said that workplace meetings should be socially distanced and only those whose participation is absolutely necessary now would be in attendance the two images we see on the screen show that the Gathering was not socially distanced and was attended by people who were not absolutely necessary to be there so it would not have been obvious to you that the event was a breach of the garden not and is a measure of how unobvious it was to me, uh, that this was some kind of breach at all, that actually or the expulsion was actually publicized this meeting in the Times newspaper reported it as I said earlier with a slightly embellished account I could, I hadn't absolutely no sense while this event was taking place and in fact later any time this event was in contravention of the rules or guidance and no one before speaking in the House of Commons suggested I go and I think the then the chancellor who also received an nfp would have been as surprised as i was so he didn't reflect on the event after if he was both in the rules and guidance before speaking in the house of commons no i didn't and and that it's because it was a long time ago i'm afraid i totally forgot about it and i thought it was a completely innocent event it was a very brief event uh i'm i'm standing at the desk i uh in the place where i normally would have sat huh, It did not seem to me that it was anything other than an ordinary Garden work event meeting commonly in Garden number 10 for staff with evidence that they are present at this Meeting while there were up to 40 people were also there and at this time a meeting had to be essential for business purposes to be within the regulations we now have evidence that the email invitation for this meeting which was sent by a senior private secretary, Martin Reynolds, was sent to 200 strangers and that it encouraged the staff who attended to bring their own alcohol which is located on page 35 of your packet.

Did you see the invitation email at some point before it was made public? No you didn't see the email itself but did you know the email was sent to 200 about people and guests they are a spirit so what was your understanding of the purpose of the Gathering to thank the staff who had been working very hard on kovid and, uh, it seemed to me and I think they just told me? shortly before, uh, before I went, I should add that the purpose was, uh, to thank you in a, uh, obviously, a ventilated area, god, did you speak of any official official?

I didn't remember, but I think they would have told me that the Kobe team is meeting outside, it's been a very difficult time, this was a day when the cabinet secretary had just resigned, I think the public officials needed I feel like, like i said regarding another event uh the government business was going on and they had to be just to feel grateful and motivated for their work and that's what i did. You know one of those things where, as I think Sue Gray May pointed out in her report? the next thing to do and you go and do it and this was the next thing to do.

I then went and had a telephone audience with her majesty with evidence that some officials and advisers felt the event should not go ahead. Page 34 of the package from him, then-director of communications Lee Kane, describes the tone of the email invitation as clearly social and in breach of covid guidance and said he raised concerns about it with Martin Reynolds . Another official gave us evidence saying and I quote that I heard there. there were so many people who were not happy with the party that they were not going to go and they themselves told another official that they thought it was crazy that evidence is on page 38 of their packet there was some concern about the government's compliance with the rules of covid or guidance raised directly with you at that time no and uh the person you mentioned who raised concerns uh read uh uh it was if you read what it says that he was concerned about the Optics not the rules and he himself attended theevent and certainly not, no concerns were raised with me, the event had been within the rules, why was I concerned about the Optics? they were coming from the uh media uh roman and they thought we were doing something other people weren't allowed to do like in my opening remarks um i made it clear i can see why people might have felt that way but I like I told the house when I came to report on that event.

I still think it was within the guide and within the rules. So, Lee came to discuss or raise concerns about the meeting with you at that time and the evidence from him suggests that he could have done so, he said. I quote I don't recall if I personally had a conversation with the Prime Minister about the garden party, but it would have been highly unusual for me not to have brought up a potentially serious communication with the piano and if he had thought and his and if he had thought and if Dominic Cummings would have thought this was really against the rules and he shouldn't go ahead they would have told Martin Reynolds and it's inconceivable that he would have gone ahead not on Reynolds discussing or raising any concerns about meeting with you at the time I said again it's evidence yes he may well have said it may have raised concerns um no not that i recall no we are aware of any concerns from what you have heard or read before or after the government took out no, as I said, as I told the House of Commons about and I gave quite a long series of comments about this event when I went out into the garden it seemed implied to me it was implied in what we were doing that this was a working event as You will see from pages 34 40 and 41 of his package we have evidence that trestle tables were set up on which alcohol was placed and that the attendees included his wife, as well as advisers who were not from number 10 but from other government departments Did you see that? when you are in the meeting I did not participate in the organization of this on the trestle tables and so on it was me I I I I and there is no prohibition I'm sorry I don't Commitment if you would it is that she was not asking if you organized the tables of easel with alcohol on it, she was asking if you saw Trestle's tables with your eyes.

I did see. I did see. I don't remember, uh, what exactly was on the tables at The Trestle. I remember going around and thanking the staff for what they were doing during covid. Now, it is perfectly possible that my wife was in the garden too, but she had a right to be there. Lee came said that she briefly attended the Meeting and that in her opinion it is clear from

watch

ing her that it was a purely social function. social and therefore against the rules it is inconceivable that he would have gone ahead the Metropolitan Police have confirmed that notices of flat fines were issued in connection with that Gathering so we know he broke covid regulations we know they knew what they were the regulations and we know you attended, so it would have been obvious to you when he was there that the meeting was non-essential for business purposes and partly a social event, right? great respect uh i want to discuss the idea that it was not an essential meeting or not a meeting that was reasonably necessary for business purposes.

I don't know why the nfp were issued, but it may be that they were issued to people who had not a sufficient reason to come from home to that Meeting or people who had come from other places to that Meeting, but I have a strong impression that I think it remains the case that Martin Reynolds believes that Meeting was within the rules and in fact within the guidance would have advised anyone else in the country had he been asked in one of the press conferences at the time to had a big social gathering in the garden it wasn't a big social gathering it was was was a gathering i intended and i really have to stress this point, people who say we were partying in lockdown just don't know what they're talking about, people who they say that that event was a purely social gathering they are quite wrong, my purpose was to thank the staff. to motivate them through what had been a very difficult time and was also a very difficult day when a cabinet secretary had just resigned politics established official distancing guidelines that did not apply to hospitals and nursing homes workplaces that they were also operating There were incredibly different, difficult and challenging circumstances, of course not, and that's why we continued, that's why we had all the stipulations that I've discussed extensively with Suburbanon on how to follow the guidance.

Thank you for completing this section of our questions. We will see two Meetings that took place in late 2020 early 2021. The first one we will see took place on January 14, 2021, it was a farewell meeting for two officials held in the pillared room of Number 10. The next one we will see it was a christmas gathering in the lobby on december 18, 2020 at the time of both gatherings the legal regulations in place to prevent the spread of alcohol spread of covid included restrictions on gatherings of two or more people and orientation in the place of work indicated that there should be social distancing of two meters in the workplace whenever possible and that only absolutely necessary participants should physically attend meetings I invite Alan Dorens to ask him about these meetings Mr.

Doris thank you good afternoon Mr. Johnson, Mr. Jones, before I ask my questions, can we again confirm your knowledge of the rules and guidance in effect at the time by recalling what you're saying to the country? She told the House of Commons on September 2 that it was very important that we get people back to the workplace in a safe and covered way. This shows that you are aware of the workplace guide and its content. Then, on November 9th, you said in a covert press conference that neither mass testing nor progress on vaccines is right now a substitute for national restrictions on social distancing and everything else, so it's even more important that we follow the rules; furthermore, in the first conference on December 30, he outlined a level 4 restriction that was enforced in London a fortnight later.

On the 14th of January the meeting took place you said the inquiry was about not meeting friends or family indoors unless they are in the same household or bubble of support and avoiding large gatherings of any kind. My first question to you is that your understanding of division is yes. thank you thank you my first question will focus on the Meeting on January 14, 2021. this was a

live

event for two officials held in a pilgrim at number 10. we have evidence that approximately 15 people attended now we will show you an image of this meeting on the screen, the non-pixelated photo is on page 757 of total evidence packet 2 here we see the image below the screen, Mr.

Johnson, the photograph shows you and at least 11 other people present at the non-pixelated image The Metropolitan Police have confirmed that a flat fine notice was issued to some people who attended this meeting as it breached the covert standards in force at the time and it was not reasonably necessary to work this bridge to the covered standards which it they were obvious when he was there. Wouldn't that be? I must respectfully disagree with you, Mr. Dorans. Rather, what I see is a and I know there are some bottles on the table, but you have that one and you're actually looking.

I think it's a zoom that's someone that's someone a screenshot taken from Zoom I guess because you have people at this event, a large number of people were actually on Zoom, you have people who work with each other every day who use that room to meetings and that they meet briefly to thank and say goodbye to young officials, I think too talented, I think Malcolm Reed and Alex Burns, they were the, they were occasional, and they were the excuse me forgive me, I shouldn't, I shouldn't, I shouldn't mention the names of the officials. I said they're talented but anyway those two, those two officials were leaving huh huh and it was my job to thank them and show that their work was appreciated huh I was there very briefly I didn't get an fpn There's nothing I can see and I have to tell you that there is nothing that I can see in that um photograph that seems to me to be against the rules or the guidance and what I really see and depending on what your perspective is, what I really see is that people try to keep a reasonable distance from each other that's what i see now i don't know what happened later but i can tell you that for the period i was there it seemed holy to me according to the rules and guidance and a proper use of my time, even if it was brief, would you agree with a dip from an official who attended who described a meeting as not strictly a work event this statement is on page 47 of your evidence well I I I I disagree with that because I think it was essential to thank the staff during the pandemic there weren't many of these occasions uh when they did i thought it was right and proper for me to motivate the staff by saying how we were doing and thank them for what they had done it wasn't just the staff the one leaving who needed to be appreciated was the staff who were there who needed to be motivated thank you the picture shows uh this meeting seems to show several bottles of alcohol in the lower right hand corner of the photograph would you say that is strictly necessary? for a work event it is a custom for a safer world to people in this country with a toast I did not see any sign of drunkenness or excess and eh I was not aware of I don't know why eh someone would have been fined for that event, no I know what happened later, the next type of thing we want to ask you about is a meeting on December 18, 2020, but if you know you broke code regulations, some attendees got flat fines. anti-nut says that this meeting was a pre-planned wine and cheese drink event by the press office and that it was widely publicized in the press we have evidence that between 25 and 40 people attended you will find the relevant statements on page 54 of candle your income your official journal confirms you slept 10 days that night attended team join this meeting no december 18 sorry december 18 25 absolutely not ok um you are official journal on page 56 of them have this plan to show us a gap between the times of 1917 and 2024 and I understand this is difficult but can you confirm where you were at that time?

I guess he was working. I think from memory there was a this was this. it was a night where we were dealing not only with the rise of the Kent variant with Delta, I think it was, but also with a lot of anxiety about whether we were going to have a no-deal Brexit. I thought the anxiety was unfounded, of course, uh, and we didn't, but it was a very long and very difficult evening. you conducted the Privileges committee paid a visit again as you know we established you can clearly see from the suppressed plant where this Meeting was taking place from the bottom of the stairs leading to then what was your downing street flight your diary says you left for your flight at 2158 apparently the meeting continued until after midnight is your evidence that you did not see or hear the noise of a count of 25 to 40 people taking place in a vegetable room a vegetable when he goes to a floor if we maybe explain to him that there is a narrow corridor that leads to the vegetable before reaching it the left stairway leads to his apartment his direct line of sight would be interceptable no more than a few meters away there is a meeting with between 25 and 40 people you had a clear direct line of sight of that room are you telling me that your evidence is that you are not aware of the noise or the event that is happening at all and everyone likes how i look what i would have uh if i had looked uh what i would have seen i'm sure people were doing a lot of work on a very very busy night now i didn't i didn't look all of a sudden i have no recollection of ever seen any kind of illicit party or gathering in The Press Room that night the first time the first time I heard about this the first thing I knew was when Jack Doyle brought it to my attention I think almost Almost a year later you'll see this Gathering go described and the evidence we received as Beyond the ropes of death and much more relaxed than it should have been, where people were shorter shoulder to each other and a number 10 staff member was not in attendance said the letter said that the Meeting had turned into a party.

Did someone tell you about it? Well, no, they didn't, and this is the crucial point. No one raised uh, any concerns with me about that event. Commons no one told me that we had anything uh that we did anything in the almost a year that followed between December 18, 2020 and November 30, 2021 uh when Jack Doyle came to see me it was a complete blank to me, yeah, Portland red cop is confirmed, a fixed penalty notice was issued tosome attendees at that meeting clearly therefore he broke the rules, there are no witnesses to say he was at the meeting but we didn't force him? aware at the time or after it happened that you had not complied with the rules covered.

It's not right, Mr. Jones, before we go on to discuss what you said in the house about the Meetings and the number 10. you will know that fines were issued for Fixed fine in relation to the Meetings is number 10 on two other dates other than those on which we have asked about these concentrations were held on December 17, 2020 and April 16, 2021, as confirmed by the Metropolitan Police statement at the end of the Hillman operation, which you will find a copy of on pages 89 and 91 of your evidence packet, did you ever have any reason to think that the Covered Wheels may have broken on this Meeting or any of these dates before 2021 you know december 2021. so which one says forgive me i don't know december 17th and april 16th i i i i don't i don't i don't remember um uh listening so i what i what I can say that the committee is none of these.

I was aware that none of these events were in violation of the rules or against the guide until stories about them started surfacing and that was after I had spoken in the comments about them for what they were they weren't on my radar at all as things we should be concerned about thank you sir you have to put him back in the chair thank you mr Johnson we have now considered the covid related rules and guidance that applied at the time of the Meetings we have discussed with you we considered your knowledge of the rules and guidance which then apply and we have considered your attendance at a knowledge of gatherings which were not socially distanced and for which penalty notices were issued now we will compare that to what you said to the House of Commons after you media reports of these meetings began to emerge we will focus particularly on what you said to the chamber on december 1 and december 8 first Examine your claims that the rules and guidance covered in number 10 were followed and me I would like to invite Andy Carter to ask our questions on this.

Thank you, Chairman, Mr. Johnson, on the afternoon of November 30. at the Downing Street office saying they were planning to publish an article saying that events had taken place in Downing Street in November and December 2020 where rules were broken covered now the article appeared online later that day and was the front page of the Splash on the newspaper on December 1st and I think you can see a copy of that on page 58 in your evidence packet I suppose you must have known that you would be asked about this in the Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons the following the day the um the first of uh december and sure enough he was asked if there was a christmas party held at number 10 on december 18th and he told the house that all guidance was fully followed at number 10 picking up the things you've said in your opening statement and the evidence you've provided that you knew what the guidance was do you maintain social distancing whenever possible? uh you make sure mitigation was put in place if that wasn't possible and you knew the bean Gatherings where social distancing wasn't necessarily maintained and masks weren't worn for example and screens weren't put up because we saw some of the photography there um, so why did you tell the house that all instructions were followed completely in number 10. thanks, so i'm not sure there were any quickly.

I'm not sure there's any requirement for masks, uh, indoors after mitigation. completely in number 10 and you know again Mr. Doran in general many of the questions that have been raised between the event that took place and when I stood up to speak in all the cases that I that uh that you mentioned that no one he came to me and he said uh we have a problem with this uh you need to care about this and I want you to do it I want you to do it and there is no trace of that in the written evidence or the uh in the electronic record and that's something very extraordinary uh given how serious it was the reason i said what i said uh was because i thought i think so uh all of the number 10 team are doing a great deal to follow the guide and uh i spoke to jack doyle about what that had happened, uh, in that event, this is on the night of November 30, uh, 2021. and it's about, uh, I'm not my diary says it was around six 'clock uh he comes in and uh says that, as you say, the Daily Mirror is going to run this story uh it mentions some other uh events um two of which I knew directly and I knew there weren't uh like me like I thought at the time I knew there was no problem with those, the other one was something that I think had something to do with an event at CCH and conservative, so an officer I knew absolutely nothing about, um, I asked him about this event on December 18th. and i said i asked him to describe it and to take into account everything i've said about that night, that it was a terribly busy and difficult night and we had a long uh kobe to discuss what to do uh with the kent variant um he told me He said it was within the rules, he said people were sitting at their desks, uh, drinking, uh, that's right, but that was not prohibited, that was under none of the rules, or the guidance, I never did. and it was regular i'm afraid people drink it on fridays um and i came to the conclusion that it sounded to me like that event was within the rules and guidance and that 45 million when i stood up to say the The next day when I said that the guidance had been fully followed during issue 10, which is actually what I said, um, I was misremembering the line that had already been sent to the media about this event being covered, the rules were followed at all.

Sometimes, but you have to understand that I didn't think there was a real distinction from the audience's point of view between rules and guidance in the sense that our observers didn't put it that way. that the public would do anything they would expect us to follow the guide as much as the rules is fine and so and so even though i said something a little different i still believe it was true can i if you said you said yes I'm asking because it would have been obvious and I understand the point that there is a confusion between guidance and rules, but yes, I could have corrected the record at that point if there wasn't any appreciable difference because it was our My job to follow the guidance as far as following the rules and My views, as I've repeatedly told the committee this afternoon, is that I believe we were following the guidance and despite images that we've all looked at that appeared to show a lack of sexual distancing perfect I think what we were doing was in compliance with the rules for the period I was there and I think the behavior was reasonable given the constraints of the building and therefore in accordance with the guidance, that's why what I said what I said I know you didn't make it to the Gathering on December 18th, you've been very clear about that, um, but you've been to some of the other Gatherings we've talked about um and you just said you asked Lee Kings to Kane about the Gathering on the 18th so why didn't you tell the house uh at that point um when they asked you uh there were some of the gatherings at number 10.

I said it was Jack Dolan sorry but as this goes to the heart of what we're trying to establish, I didn't think those events were a problem. no one had previously brought them up to me as things I should be concerned about and they didn't and as I told you repeatedly at the time call me uh obtuse or ignorant but it didn't strike me as conflicting with the rules or guidance as we were trying to implement it in number 10. Okay, the next question from the prime minister was on December 8, a week later, I think that probably would have been fair. say you would have guessed that the leader of the opposition would have raised the issue again because, uh, the night before, ITV had released a video of a mock press conference where numbers 10 of staff were apparently joking about the meetings on December 18th um pmq is 8th December asked if there was a party at number 10 on 13th November and told house instructions and rules were followed in Downing Street at all times by 8th December a full week had passed ever since he was first asked at home about the meetings at number 10, the subject kept making the front page of many of the newspapers and as we later saw on TV, what a hair for any other questions about Meetings for decide if I needed to correct his earlier statement that the guidance had been followed and if I should reaffirm it well I did it as a committee you know I did the most obvious thing that was uh when the video of Allegra uh came up on the uh the night of I think the uh uh December 7th I decided that I was getting conflicting information about what had happened at this meeting on December 18th um I was concerned that there hadn't been what I was relying on, uh what I thought were the honest and well meaning descriptions of this from my trusted advisers, but clearly there was a difference of opinion, so i tasked the cabinet secretary with conducting an investigation which is the most somewhat important one i did at the end of that prime minister's questions on december 8th.

I think you have been asked several times about the Downing Street meetings, but at no time did you tell the house that you knew there had been meetings you have attended, particularly the five we have raised with you. Why didn't you tell the house on December 8th that there were meetings he had attended, but Mr. Carter, do you have it? I came to understand that in my mind at that time these events did not seem improper or offensive to me so they were not in my Consciousness because I thought they were work events as I told the house when I came to discuss the event of May 20 and i came to the house to explain that i made it very clear i thought it was a work event and in fact i still do after i told the house on december 8th that the guidance and rules were followed at all times in Downing Street.

He then reiterated this the following month. He told the camera a prime minister's questions on January 12. I believe the events in question were within the guide and were within the rules. the rules and guidance were and you personally attended at least four meetings, those on May 20, June 19, November 13, and January 14, 2021, for which fixed penalty notices were issued to attendees who had broken the rules and what rule violations and guidance must have been obvious to you because you were there and you sure as hell weren't so the only fpn I got was for the event where I, uh, we've finished. in some detail what was the event in the cabinet room and I think even this committee I would venture to suggest that I might concede that if they had been in my shoes at that event it may not have even occurred to them eh that this was an event that went against the rules or the guide it certainly did not occur to me it did not occur to the then Minister of Finance it did not occur to the Media Department we agreed that that was it anyway, that is the only event for which I received an nfp all the other events huh during the period I was there I can only conclude that they were considered by the known huh as non-rule breaking events because I was not issued an nfp therefore you have two sets of events, one where I got an fpn which blew my mind because I couldn't figure out why I got it and the other, uh, where I was unaware of the rule breaking at the time and thought we were following the guidance so there was nothing he could say to the house about that school he sent to page 61 of the evidence packet there you can see a statement from the then Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds in which he says that he directly told him asked if it was Is it realistic to argue that the guidance was followed at all times in issue 10?

Do you accept that you were advised not to say guidance was followed at all times in number 10 and yet you told the house it was December 8th and 12th? so there are a couple of important points, uh, it's absolutely true that Martin Reynolds was cautious about what he should say at the house on December 8th because we had already started, uh, the process of the investigation that we were looking at. at the event on December 18th I had received assurances about the rules on December 18th, but I had not received assurances about the direction that Martin was trying to get to if you look at what he says it's clear he's talking about social distancing and if it was uh if we maintained social distancing within number 10 and if that would be uh that would be if we maintained perfect social distancing within number 10 and if you look at uh paragraph um um Martin makes it clear that he thinks the nature of the work environment in number 10 uh might make it uh hard to claim full social distancing was observed uh that so excuse me just spend while the bell ringswe don't need to vote but sorry ok that's a very very important point it just goes to the heart of I think the confusion and what works in your comments for me Martin is talking about whether or not we observe perfect social distancing no He's saying that we're not adhering to guidance and I can prove that if you'll just reflect for a second on what it would mean if he said that during the pandemic we were not adhering to guidance, he didn't mean that, uh, he and I were responsible for making sure that we were watching the guide the best we could if I had asked Simon Case or any of the senior officials, uh, if we were following the police.

Upside down, did you float the guide at number 10? Theta said no, we were following the guidance, but with mitigations, uh and uh, with social distancing where possible, as specified in the guidance on reflection, and since Mr. Reynolds says that you agreed. remove the reference to the orientation. Do you wish you had corrected the registry reference at that point? I know which way the guide had been broken I didn't know that it didn't I had no evidence that someone had broken the guide It wasn't clear to me what I would say uh to the House of Commons second no one no one was telling me advising to fix the record and as I've tried to explain Martin and I are talking about two different things that I was talking about the whole of following the guide he was talking about maintaining a seamless social network. distancing uh the advice he was giving me was in relation to a statement he was making about the event on December 18 and about the guarantees he had received and it was true that he had received guarantees about that event uh until now as the rules said, uh , but it was also true to say that no one had explicitly assured me about targeting and thought it wise to remove the reference to targeting, or else it's true as you just said Mr.

Carter, then I moved on to pmqs later to talk with Catherine West. I know when everyone was going to get to this point but she asked you a question and like you said I told her that she asked if there was a party on November 13th I said no but I was sure the rules had been observed rules and the guide eh what i said no but no matter what i was sure that the rules and the guide would be deserved at all times and i said it with confidence because i knew about the events i was talking about on november 13 and i had my own personal reasons for believing that was the true statement for us paragraph 81 also uh you say you don't believe perfect compliance with social distancing was required by guidance if you believe this why didn't you make it clear when you told the house that the guidance was followed at all times?

Well, that's a very good question, um, Mr. Carter, and maybe it would have been, um, maybe, as I think, Mr. Bernard said earlier in um, maybe if I'd made more clearly what I meant and what I felt and i thought about uh following the guidance uh that would have probably helped the final question, paragraph 28 of your presentation, you cite a workplace exit guidance that says where social distancing guidelines cannot be fully followed in relation to a particular activity, the business should consider whether that activity needs to continue for the business to operate, and if so, take all possible mitigation measures to reduce the risk of transmission.

Are you saying what you thought? these meetings were so critical to the function of the government that it was permissible to hold them even if they couldn't be socially distanced huh the short answer is yes i thought it essential to thank the staff for their work i think even though the photos look display festive events. I think our efforts, even in those photos, are being made to do social distancing and what I saw and what was in my head when I was speaking to the House of Commons was a memory. Strong recollection of people over a long period of time doing everything they could to stop the spread of disease within the building and to be clear at those events in the lobby, the first images we saw what mitigations were put in place that were required by the guidance, so uh i've listed a few of them but we avoided physical contact we didn't for example as a guide and it says we don't touch pens uh we don't pass uh things to each other if we could if we could possibly uh avoid it um we kept we kept even though you know i never would i wouldn't mean to say that was perfect people were passing drinks to each other because we've seen the picture of course i'm no good and this is a guide this is a guide and no I'm going to pretend that, uh, it was rigidly enforced, but that's explicitly what the guidance provides, uh, we had Zoom meetings, we had a big reduction in numbers. of the people in the building in general, we had signs telling you which way to walk, we had perspex screens and I've mentioned all of this before, but it's worth it, it's really worth going over because you're asking about that specific event when you see the photographs in the lobby none of those mitigations seem to be evident yes because then what event are you talking about from the first photographs we saw yes it's ok on November 30th the Lee Kane event yes and that's because uh that was the space where the people were gathering quick uh if you wanted to send a message it was the natural place to do it uh yeah you don't see um you don't see um uh plexiglass screens there but that doesn't mean there was 't uh sanitizer and efforts to restrict the spread of the latest coveted question to me and just in all of this keep in mind that we believed that Martin Reynolds believed that everyone was responsible for the health of the building and the health of the employees in the building I think the guidance was being greatly increased in a way that was going beyond the testing regimen guide I have outlined.

I don't think any member of this committee doesn't recognize the challenges the team was facing at Downing Street and the steps that were being taken to try and keep people safe. Although I want to end, if I may, with the comment he made to me. the house on January 12 that you implicitly believed that the May 20 Meetings that you attended had been a work event that was the event in the garden I mean that it is being qualified it was qualified in the press to bring your own cabin was a garden party um many are suggesting that it was clearly not essential for work purposes and therefore are in breach of the rules covered at the time why did you say that to the house because I like myself implicitly believe that it was a work event and, as I told the committee a moment ago, I was escorted into the garden after being briefed shortly before on what the event entailed, uh, I got together and thanked various groups of people who had been working in Covert you Mira, the numbers are reckoned between 10 and 30 or 40.

I couldn't say exactly how many were there, but I thought it was an appropriate use of the garden. I felt like it was an obvious work event, but what I said to sue gray later, if we can, if we can mention, uh, Borough President Sue Gray, well, I told sue that gray was that, um, when I looked back at that event this is what i was what i what i what i said was why i said what i said to the house you know i tried to put myself in someone's shoes a member of the public looking out over the outfield wall and seeing that, and I had to accept that even though it was I think within the guide and within the rules I have to accept that the members of the public who looked at it would have thought that it seems to me something that he does not allow us to do and i felt very deeply in retrospect that i didn't but i didn't feel it at the time you see what i'm trying to say i understand i can i can ask you one more question i think probably all the mps that have been in um in days where As we're so busy getting from one meeting to the next, trust our advisors to guide us where we're going.

I understand what you said about it, as the Prime Minister working with a busy schedule, did you ever question any of the events you were attending when the advisors were taking you for them I look back it's a wonderful thing uh in hindsight I i might have thought of uh some things you know a suede post poster uh the beginning of the coming out of everything that uh went well i thought about it but not at the time i thought we were working i thought that we were working and that's what I promise you that's what the officials uh in number 10 also thought they were doing thank you very much Mr.

Johnson can we now come in? Regarding the issue of guarantees that you have mentioned to the house on numerous occasions and I would like to ask Alberto Costa to ask you the committee's questions on the issue of guarantees. Thank you, good afternoon, Mr. Johnson, thank you very much for coming before this important consultation. , I am very grateful. Could you invite the team to a place on slide number eight please Mr Johnson as we just saw on screen on 8th December 2021 in your opening remarks to the Prime Minister's questions you told the House that and I quote I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations arose that there was no party and no covered rules were broken In response to subsequent questions you said that quote I have been repeatedly assured that no rules were broken and again quote I have been repeatedly assured no rule was broken.

Now these quotes that are on the screen are also on pages 64-65 of your evidence packet. the attorney general, the solicitor general, or any of the hundreds of solicitors and lawyers who work for the government, did any of them give you the guarantee? uh thank you very much mr costa ok i know the short answer is no they didn't but neither did i seek assurances from them nor did i claim that i had i don't think i ever claimed that i had received assurances from the Law Offices or Representatives legal the people i said uh the people who had given me assurances that there was uh there was more than one and in fact it was on on more than one occasion so would it be helpful if i told you why i said i was They asked their questions repeatedly and then I just keep going? the course of your imagination if you are very interested in hearing of course your full answers may I ask the head of the Civil Service Simon K for any other senior career permanent staff to give you these assurances.

Martin Reynolds evidence that he thought the rules were not uh violated um if you look at what he has to say um I don't remember being specifically assured by any senior official about the rules uh or the guidance within number 10 but I do interesting is that, on the contrary, nobody gave me any country. That's right, his statements confirming this are on pages 70, 72 and 75 of his evidence packet. trust the assurance of political advisers rather than as I mentioned a permanent official or more importantly a government lawyer so here's the art the simple answer is uh when I needed to figure out what had it happened, if the rules were broken, I went first of course, or I asked the senior adviser who was there first and that was Jack Doyle, uh, the next week, you can see that uh, Jack Doyle says that, uh, he confirms that he tells me in a WhatsApp.

I've been, you can say they assured me there was no party and no rules were broken so he tells me again I also called James Slack who and both Jack and James Slacker have the highest regard for uh and I think they would be completely honest with me about what happened and they both said the rules weren't broken and the reason I didn't ask a lawyer or other senior civil service official because they were the people who had been there and they were direct, they could give an opinion on the legality of that event which, uh, I did.

I didn't think an online eyewitness could get it right when you decided to rely on the guarantees of mentioned in the House, why didn't you discuss the Guarantee with Cabinet Secretary Simon, your Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds, or a lawyer from the government at the time people who have questions gave you the Guarantee? could be so double check with a government attorney firstly well Martin Reynolds as well as being my private private secretary is a lawyer and his view of all events as you will see from your evidence is that he believes that we follow the rules at all times and that was undoubtedly what he told me eh you will see evidence eh Mr.

Costa of the eh of the eh of my presentation that eh at least a couple of MP colleagues I remember from the morning meeting that I asked in general if we followed the rules if there were parties and the opinion of the public officials gathered and the advisers was that no, we had not broken the rules and in the end and that is what the members of the MPS to whom he refers said They are the ones found in paragraph 90 of your written submission where you stated that the evidence given to us by Sarah Dimes MP and Andrew Griffith MPS sees officials give their assurances in their daily office meetings. those are the additional guaranteesthe ones you are referring to yes and it's not clear what uh date that um uh Sarah and Andrew uh remember but they certainly remember that I received those guarantees and don't forget if I could make an important point from the uh of December 7th to 7th onwards uh la uh Consultation is ongoing so ask why I didn't ask uh Simon's case.

I asked Simon's case. I asked Simon's case to investigate. Well, I'm very grateful that you remember that the Cedar Dam MP and Andrew Griffith MP gave you assurances, but you were there. In those meetings, those two MPS said that guarantees had been given, so if you allow me to ask the question and you can correct me if I misunderstood who were the officials who gave these guarantees in these meetings that you have referred to in paragraph 90 in their written submissions, well I can't name anybody, I don't know if I don't know if I can, I think why not, I think most of them have indicated that they don't want to remain anonymous.

Mr. Johnson could you just pause and answer my question, aren't you naming these officials that you say we're giving you these assurances because you can't remember who they were or can't remember their names or because at least because of confidentiality there is at least one adviser I can think of who is being asked not to be named and she would be she would have been at the morning meeting and um I don't want well could you follow that up in writing through your lawyers to the investigation confirming the name of the person that Utica gave you the assurance that the meetings to which these persons refer, if I may say so, Mr.

Costa, I am not exactly following the direction of your questions because it is clear from what you I Said I was assured uh I was repeatedly assured uh by different people and on different occasions that the rules had been followed well and that we have tried to determine who these people were so it would be very helpful if you could follow up with the individual being referred to you just referenced now, could you ask the team to put slide 9 on the screens? Please now slide 9 refers to a comment made by Mr. Doyle and that will also be found on page 74 of the packet.

Mr Doyle is asked a question there was a discussion at this meeting the meeting on December 8, 2021 whether the coveted guidance was adhered to at all times and Mr Doyle claims to quote I did not advise prime ministers to say this, for what Mr. Doyle says he did not discuss with you whether any meeting met the coveted guidance, is it correct that you received no assurance that the December 18, 2020 meeting or any other meeting met the covered guidance? yes it's correct to say no as far as possible uh remember i didn't get any direct assurances about the uh december 18th event about the guide uh but until Martin Reynolds made his point to me on the morning of the 8th , no one had told me anything adverse about our orientation monitoring and it was my impression, uh, from what we were doing, from my experience lived in number 10, that we were I tell you something about what I shouldn't, since I'm telling you giving the answer so let me continue if I want to say that Mr.

Johnson can I ask you to go to pages 70 and 73 of his evidence packet and you will see excerpts from the witness statement signed by Mr. Doyle now says the Mr Doyle and I quote the lines that were written for the mirror which is the Daily Mirror which became the basis for Mr Johnson's lines to answer the Prime Minister's questions on the end of the appointment of December 1, 2021 also says in connection with a conversation he had with you on November 30th. it's our line end date page 76 of your evidence packet shows the line sent to the mirror was appointment covered the rules were followed at all times end date for that line Mr.

Johnson the security you relied on in the House of Commons on December 8th was initially developed as nothing more than a media line for Bay Press inquiries, right? But I don't see any great advice in that and I think we have to be absolutely realistic about how government is run and if a minister can't rely on the advice of entrusted senior officials, uh, when he has to do a lot of business, then it would be impossible for the government to continue. Could I ask that he has acknowledged that it was developed as a media line? to keep Bay the Press inquiries, so I think we need to hear from Mr.

Costa, his next question, thank you, thank you, Chairman. Doubtful about the compliance of some of these meetings with the rules and guidance. If you turn to the page, it is evidenced by saying that you said if it is time for page 79 of your evidence packet, you will see a selection of WhatsApp messages sent by Mr Doyle these messages are discussing the June 19 meeting As of 2020 which marks his birthday, Mr Doyle says he was and I quote struggling to find a way for the Meeting to be in the rules and that he was not sure he would cite work for I suggest it was reasonably necessary for work purposes.

Did you know, Mr. Johnson, that his trusted senior adviser, as you said, Mr. Doyle, had doubts about whether this Meeting was within the rules, so that's not the answer to that question? I didn't know he said WhatsApp didn't send it to me I think it was January 25th uh long after we started the process that would become Sue's pimple I think Sue Gray's query was already alright a couple other quick points if i may um that whatsapp um jack wasnt at that event on june 19 uh 2020 uh he didnt know anything about what actually happened so he was relying on the media descriptions of that event uh, which came up later and yes he messaged someone else uh he says he needed to find out uh what the rationale was but only to go back to the event on June 19, 2020 , which we have visited several times. at the time i thought he was so innocent huh huh he was actually informed so far i'm talking about the assurances he was given so let me focus again how can it be that mr doyle and this is the point i think that it is important for the investigation to understand how Mr Doyle, one of his top advisers, his trusted adviser, could be the person whose Guarantee used in the House of Commons had doubts about this meeting's compliance with the rules , but you keep seeing that you weren't there how can those people he wasn't at that event uh he was struggling to deal with the media accounts long after that event and after the Sue Gray investigation had already started and mostly did not even at that time let alone before i stand in the house of commons raise any concerns i may have had about that event thank you even if he knew it is almost over mr johnson why did you tell the house? of the Commons who repeatedly assured him that he hadn't broken any rules when he knew that wasn't the case because he knew what the rules were.

At the time, that is not the case, some might see his Trust in the supposed assurances he received as and forgive me as a bypass mechanism to avoid having to answer questions about his knowledge of these meetings. Wouldn't that be a fair assessment? No, it would be completely ridiculous. evaluation I said in the uh in the House of Commons on uh on the 8th of uh December uh that I have been repeatedly assured uh that there was no party and no rule breaking I was referring to December 20th sorry December 18th event The event of December 18 of the previous year, 2020 um I had the assurances I had received about that event uh They were from people I had the greatest respect for and who were directly relevant to my understanding of what that event consisted of.

It was completely sensible to talk to Jack and then Jack Doyle and then James Slack to get his honest take on what had happened and my impression on November 30, 2020 of what Jack told me was that it sounded like that. I was agreeing with the rules, it sounded like it was necessary for work purposes, but it also sounded because of what I was saying that I was agreeing with the guide when it turned out that after the Allegra video eh to be in doubt I commissioned Simon's case to the cabinet secretary to conduct an investigation so at the time uh yeah and if you look at that statement I say I have been repeatedly assured that there was no party in the uh the rules were followed but I asked Simon case to investigate so for the purposes of the house my my statement uh should be seen in the for the purposes of the household business that statement should be seen in the context of the investigation the investigation that I just started and that in the same questions , I say I'll make sure the finds are placed in the House of Commons library, okay, thank you very much for answering my questions, thank you Mr Johnson, but just uh, one point along. with my colleagues I was in the house at the time these assurances were given and we take them as serious assurances you told the house that you have received assurances wouldn't you expect us to be a bit dismayed to learn that it was not from the senior officials it was by political appointments that they themselves had doubts about it did not only cover only covered one meeting did not cover the other three and only covered the rules did not cover guidance I think if you would have told us that at the house and you were also there at the time so which is a bit hard to understand, sorry, could you let me finish my point?

Safety is when you've been there and seen it with your own eyes, I mean, if you were going 100 miles an hour and you saw the speedometer saying 100 miles an hour, that would be a little weird, wouldn't it? said someone assured me he wasn't because it's what you see with your own eyes, you actually think we're a little bummed out that, to the letter, these assurances amounted to something and that Judging by what that you've told us in response to questions from Mr. Coss, they didn't amount to much, so first of all, I think you're a great expected president, uh, if you're talking about the event on December 18, 2020, I don't know .

I don't know there's some confusion, I wasn't that, uh, that's one of the three, I wasn't there and if you look at the statement I made in the House of Commons and because this was the relevant issue because the Allegra video related with December the Event of December 18 The questions of the leader of the opposition the previous week related to the event of December 18. He was responding about the December 18 event because that was the issue at hand. He had received, as I said, repeated assurances from different people that they are different. more than one occasion and more than one person that the event was uh according to the rules and I had that as much from uh as I said Jack Doyle and James Slack now the question that I think the committee is trying to resolve is is that a guarantee would good enough is good enough to trust the director of communications and the former director of communications about an event no matter how eminent they may be and i think the answer is yes i think no sorry forgive me uh he offered that's not correct uh chair uh director of communications Jack Doyle did not say at the time he briefed me on the event on December 18 that he was unsure whether the guidance was followed was unsure can I just sorry sorry where is it his evidence for Tony gave assurances of the rules, not about covid.

They asked me about the meeting. Rallying the leader of the opposition. You played your clip just now. people came, uh, to a Christmas party in Dining Street last year, that was the question that was then, uh, when I said that the guidance was followed in full at all times, which was later questioned so Allegra, Uh, Stratton had to say, uh, so we immediately instituted the investigation into the Simon case, but that was still the point at issue, the main issue was what had happened on December 18th and really whether the committee is going to say that I can't trust the advice of senior people um like um Jack Dolan and James Slack who had the advantage of actually being there so it's really going to make it very difficult for the government to continue um Mr.

Johnson just two points that come up from when be ready two points coming out of uh the recent Q&A firstly on uh sarah cena's question um a statement of evidence where you mention december 1st or december 8th uh she remembers are you asking if we continue the rules at all times not us? and this is in her paragraph 90 of her presentation and I remember more than one person in the room said yes of course and she says I'm not sure who the people were but I am and I quote I'm 90 sure. one of them was the Simon case the cabinet secretary um and um uh the difficulty we have with that evidence is in the Simon case affidavit which I'm afraid is not in the packet of calls but it is on page 33 oh it is uh in uh 791 and 792 of the general package and um don't waste time fumbling for it because I will explain that you have asked about these two meetings um and make it clear that there was no discussion in the meeting of the following points and if so what would be the blue cells from that discussion uh says I don't think soany of these issues were discussed at the meeting and he asked a general question about 793 are you aware of any other meetings that Mr.

Johnson was present where the items listed in Parts E and F were discussed and that is if there were any any discussion on compliance? with the guidance of the years and he says no so we have a hard time giving credibility to the evidence we have received from Sarah dines even though I am sure she gave that evidence in good faith then there is the question of her Trust in I mean do you have anything to say about it? I should give you a chance, well, I think if you're going to question her evidence, then you need to hear from her.

I can't comment on it. I can't comment. about her I can't comment on what Simon Cater said what I like what I remember is uh General statement uh from uh from colleagues that uh was the line he was about to use in pmqs that uh about the rules that were they followed were compatible remember the case of simon saying frankly frankly i i i i i i i not but i'm not questioning but you should ask him i'm not questioning the veracity because you were there i'm not questioning the veracity of her statement as she believes it because she's pretty open she says she's only at 90 she's not sure she's not sure I'm sorry I wasn't trusting what I said I think it's very important that we question Sarah Danes no I don't think I will I don't think it's totally irrelevant.

I think the key point is that when I said that I had been insured repeatedly, uh, it wasn't right. I never claimed that I had one of those people who gave me those guarantees. Simon's case is fine. but there is another more general point that you make that I don't see a big Vice in the sense that it depends on Mr. Doyle's Assurance, who was an unappointed political adviser, not a professional civil servant um and not an Empire um well no we are relying on a super Evidence of grace in this investigation um the obligation not to mislead Parliament is a very serious obligation for any member of Parliament let alone a minister and requires the MP or minister to exercise due care , It is not like this?

I have to say that if I was accused of breaking the law and had to compromise with the House of Commons of all places that I had not broken the law, I would want the advice of a lawyer. I would want the advice of someone really independent. and capable and you didn't ask, the cabinet can only drop it for 10 seconds, yes, they didn't charge me with breaking the law, they asked me to say what happened at a party or an event in the press room on December 18, 2020. If I was asked to commit that the rules and guidance had been followed and there was any doubt about it, there was a modicum of doubt about it, well, I would want to cover your assurances by showing that 'I have absolutely taken the proper advice, it is I'm telling you, Mr.

Johnson, you didn't take the right advice. Carter said that he expected something like that question to come up, but actually I thought the leader of the opposition wouldn't bother with that story. the answer is simply that during the and i have tried to describe what i felt about these events as they were happening no one raised me or had any concerns before i woke up on december 1st about those events that you did i did not ask i saw that this is complete nonsense I mean complete nonsense I asked the relevant people who were seniors who have been working very hard they gave me a rook they gave me a clear account of what had happened how the cabinet secretary was not sorry Don't be mistaken because I asked the Cabinet Secretary and I would like to ask the Cabinet Secretary to do an inquiry on December 7th, not on whether you're assuming the House of Commons was right, but of course they were. we can move on um we can turn to charles walker for our next questions um sorry there's some noise coming from the back of the rumors it's stopped ok huh mr johnson housekeeping matters you're an MP I'm an MP so we have a duty to Parliament, there has been a lot of human noise about the legitimacy of this inquiry, which I think we need to address, you kind of alluded to it in your opening statement, I'll just give you one example of an organization claiming to have its interests in the fund is called conservative publication in a recent article published on its website on 12th march it is claimed that this was the headline which revealed Boris's British Sewn Privileges committee and the rulings so when workers proposed to refer Boris Johnson to Privileges committee for misleading Parliament, many Conservative MPs did not object.

I just want to break away from that for a second and go back about 11 months before that, April 21, when his case was referred to the Privileges committee. The Government Minister, the Right Honorable Michael Ellis QC, the then Cabinet and Pay Minister, the Master General said the following in Winding up, the government recognized the seriousness of the issue being considered. Let me say from the outset that the Prime Minister has always been clear that he is happy to deal with whatever consultation Parliament sees fit to make, he is happy for the chamber to decide how it wishes to proceed today and this is important because because at the end of al At the end of that the motion was tabled and there was no vote and that is a matter of fact, in fact there was not even a shout of objection from anyone, can you accept that that was the case? not a lot of Conservative MPs were opposed the truth not a single not a single Conservative MP was opposed yes that's completely correct that's great now this is really good this is good we are making progress on your opening statement you referred to the chair uh the appointment from the chair suggests to some degree um that you know you had concerns but you were willing to put those concerns aside on 14th june 2022 the honorable lady right for camberwell and peckham um there was a motion to add her to the committee on 14th june 2022 2022. and um happened at the end of a debate on the privatization of Channel 4 and there were colleagues of ours in the chamber and when the motion was made and the correct name of the honorable lady was mentioned there was not a single object Shout not a single not even a little mouse that scuttled across the floor not a single Object Scream on June 14 can you accept that too?

Of course if these concerns were alive about the committee and our legitimacy or the legitimacy of the chair someone might have yelled objection so Charles just quickly come back to this point uh my my anxiety is about uh fairness uh they are contained in my uh submission uh the I have said what I had to say about the chair's earlier comments, uh, and I said what I had to say about my belief in the ability of this committee, which is very important for the distinguished committee, uh, to be impartial, which was done before your appointment on the 14th and I have come before you this afternoon in the full confidence that you will be impartial and that you will look at the evidence and conclude that I did not deliberately or recklessly mislead Parliament, there is not an ounce of evidence to suggest that I did and I hope that they will exonerate me and I think they should exonerate me of any contempt so no we received your evidence package which was very well organized it's been a long afternoon we've shared the conversation that you had to do it for your account, so thank you for answering our questions, but it's a well-organized package.

I'm not telling you, I'm saying your supporters seem to want it both ways, they're hoping the evidence you've provided in 52 pages will exonerate you and give you a clean bill of health, that's the outcome you want, but just in case. that does not happen there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize the committee to call us a kangaroo court you have characterized us as a kangaroo court you can tell by my presence this afternoon by the seriousness with which i have taken uh your questions uh by my attempts to respond in detail uh what are the points you have raised with me how seriously i take you and your committee uh the respect i have for this institution of parliament and for better or worse whatever the equity issues i may have raised in my presentation this is the body that decides on our standards and privileges this is the committee that does it there is no other way to do it that is why I have come here out of respect for the committee out of respect for Parliament and because I don't think I can plead guilty of deliberately misleading Parliament on the basis of the evidence you have gathered, so as an MP are you sorry that colleagues of ours who are also MPs have called the Privileges committee a kangaroo court.

I don't want no one to cause uh to no mate. a yes or no yes but you regret it you regret it sorry me my questions about equity are well documented in uh my presentation uh i think the me i don't despise the term you just used i don't want to repeat it but i think people it will judge for itself on the basis of the evidence it has produced about the impartiality of this committee. I have every confidence that you will show that you can be fair. I'm almost I'm almost done can I just interject yes you will accept that this committee can be right and wrong instead of being unfair in a witch hunt um I I certainly think let me put it this way Mr.

Costa I think if this committee found me uh in contempt of parliament uh to have which would be to have come and done something so completely crazy and contrary to uh my beliefs and my principles is to come here to come to Parliament and knowingly uh lie i think that would not only be unfair, i think it would be wrong, but in fact, I wouldn't classify it as a witch hunt or kangaroo court, that's the point. you have but I I don't want to uh you know I'll study I'll study your conclusions uh from the evidence I disapproved of the terms you've used I don't want to see uh good colleagues feeling like they're under pressure anyway I think uh if you study this evidence of In an impartial way, you will come to the conclusion that I have given almost almost done on May 25, describe number 10 and here are the speech marks a building of 5,300 square meters spread over five floors, excluding apartments, hundreds of employees have entitled to work there and I am very sorry I think this is probably the last time you will be back on these dates the first of December you will know very well that you told the leader of the opposition that all the instructions in number 10 were fully followed. on December 8 against the leader of the opposition you said that I have been repeatedly assured that no rules were broken and then I will quickly speak about this on December 8 to Catherine West regarding the alleged party on November 13.

I am sure that no matter what, the instructions and rules were followed at all times. folks i guess the question i have is how a land they wouldn't have and the rules were being followed all the time its impossible because you would have cameras in every room i mean well no but i had their peers. of eyes so you're right so I had no omniscience about what was going on in the building and I had to trust what people told me you're absolutely right with Charles but what they had to say was extremely valuable and they were very reputable people and they are very reputable people and they gave a description of that event and to get back to the point that the chair was raising huh initially it was an event that was under consideration under discussion and um I took my cue from them so I want to say this because I, you worked incredibly hard.

I accept that you worked incredibly hard. I accept that your officials worked incredibly hard. I accept that you were hospitalized. i stick around and not sure if this helps or hinders your case is when you look at 126 flat fine notices delivered to number 10 it's clear the Simon Martin Reynolds case Jack Doyle Lee Kane James loosens them all I really had no idea what was going on because if they had it is highly unlikely that 126 notices of flat fines would have been delivered and I can tell Sir Charles you put your finger on the Crucial Point huh why huh if the committee thinks I should have known or to back to the conversation we had the doctrine of obviousness uh if it was obvious to me then it would have been obvious to those other old distinguished people it really wasn't and i was very surprised to get my own nfp uh and i'm frankly amazed by the number of other fpns.

Clearly what happened and uh, you know, if we don't want to go back through it, we don't want to reinvest it, but I think what basically happened was that on some nights the events just went on too long and I can't apologize enough for that, but we are where we are. I don't want to test your patience because you've been here a long time. if not deliberate if not deliberate it may have been reckless or slightly reckless not warning your statements to the house to the best of my knowledge or i really hope it was the truth of the statement so yes is it possible accept that there was actually a degree of recklessness? the Commons risk that it's going to turn out not to be true, especially something as easily falsifiable as the guideline was fully followed, was my belief that was the case. and and and I hope that thecommittee understand that but it was it was not deliberate it was based on my genuine understanding and uh belief about what we were doing what we had been doing for a long time and I think that's your point just now was was was one of the most important in this whole thing uh it wasn't obvious to me uh there were problems with some events and it wasn't obvious to the other seniors that you had described i finally explored the question of fixing the registry problem because there's been a lot of discussion about what you fixed the registry and I just want to explore one aspect of that and express to you what he said on May 25, 2022 that he said I'm happy to put on the record now that when I came to this house and said in all sincerity that the rules and guidance had been followed at all times , it was what you believed to be true and you told us this afternoon, then you go on to say that it certainly happened that when I was present at Gatherings to say goodbye to the staff, what you told the house by way of supposed correction was that it certainly happened when you were present at Gatherings to fire the staff.

I want the staff to say goodbye that the guidance was followed at all times do you want to reaffirm that or do you want to correct the record and acknowledge here that actually the guidance was not followed at all times just to be clear because you can correct the record to this committee, so what I want to say is, first of all, that the rules were followed and that is for my last period those events and that is clear from the FPS and it was my belief, uh at the time that I made those statements of that the guidance was followed and actually, President, it's still my belief for the time I was there when I was looking at these events, I thought they were within the guidance given what I knew about what we were trying to do given what I knew about the limitations we face in maintaining a perfect social distance and so what is your belief now?

So what I said I don't want to descend from what I said on May 25, well, May 25 was five months later. this was first raised and you had time to consider all the issues that were raised and it's been even longer until here we are now and there's a lot of evidence that has been produced and you've had a chance to consider do you still want to state that it was indeed Is it the case when you were present at the Meetings to dismiss the staff that the guide was followed at all times? Do you want to help?

Yes, what I want to do I do and because I don't see any reason to take back what I said on May 25 because at that time, uh, May 25 I was in possession and I think the committee in the world was possibly in possession From all the um uh um material that we have looked at today, my opinion remains that the guidance allowed for social distancing not to be carried out with the drill sergeant rigid, uh, Accuracy, particularly in difficult circumstances like the ones we were operating , as long as I had mitigations and so was my it. it was my last you stick to that point and don't want to make a correct answer thanks for checking in thanks um that wraps up our questions um there are some endpoints you haven't mentioned yet not the ones you have mentioned but would like to mention that haven't come up in our questions we would like to give you a chance thank you very much thank you I have enjoyed our discussion very much well I think it has been useful I really think it has been a useful discussion and I hope it is clear to the committee uh what was on my heart and in my mind uh december 1st and december 8th um 2021 and may 25th and many other questions ok thank you mr johnson litty will consider considering the evidence you have provided along with other evidence we have reviewed in the course of our investigations we may obtain further written or oral evidence before the end of our investigation and before reaching our final conclusions if we deem it necessary and we have already discussed the possibility of that, but for now that concludes our today's session order order thank you thank you