Sue Gray Report Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Sue Gray Report

Chris Bryant Excerpts
Monday 31st January 2022

(2 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
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Yes, I completely agree, and I must say that I am shocked by some of the commentary that I have heard from the Benches opposite about that matter today.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
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The thing is, this is who the Prime Minister is:

“a serious failure to observe…high standards…failures of leadership and judgment…excessive consumption of alcohol…in a professional workplace”.

“gatherings” that “should not have been” able “to take place”; staff too frightened to raise concerns; parties in his own private flat. A leopard does not change its spots, does it? Every single one who defends this will face this again and again and again, because he still will not even admit to the House that when he came to us and said, of 13 November, that

“the guidance…and the rules were followed at all times”—[Official Report, 8 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 379]

and, on 1 December, that all the guidelines were observed, those things simply were not true. If he will not correct the record today, there is nothing accidental about this, is there? It is deliberate.

Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
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I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is trying to say, but I direct him again to the point made by Sue Gray:

“No conclusions should be drawn, or inferences made from this other than it is now”

time

“for the police to consider the relevant material”.

That is what the House should allow them, frankly, to do.