Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lia Nici]

No, I will not give way at the moment. Those people advised the then Prime Minister again and again that no rules were broken and that guidance was followed at all times. Everybody in this place knows that no Minister stands at the Dispatch Box and knowingly misleads. They have to take counsel from people who advise them, many of whom are giving legal advice that they know to be the truth, but the public do not necessarily know that that is the case. If you are a Prime Minister and you are advised in that way again and again, no matter how you question that advice, you have to stand at the Dispatch Box and give those statements, because that is what you have been legally advised to do. People may not like that, but that is the truth, and that is why I am standing here and saying this.

The sad thing is, many people who gave that advice are still working in and around No. 10 and Whitehall, but we do not know who they are because they are not a high-profile politician.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady might reflect that it sounds like she is trying to deflect blame from Boris Johnson and put it on to unelected members of staff, and that people here and people at home may find that, to put it mildly, rather unedifying.

[Lia Nici]

I thank the hon. Lady. What I would say, actually, is that I have had the privilege to work with many unelected officials—special advisers and civil servants —who have been professional, worked hard and been good at giving accurate advice, but, from the evidence in the report, we all know that there were those who did not. We cannot shy away from that; we know that is the case.