Sue Gray Report

Lord Newby Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank the Leader for repeating the Statement. I am rather disappointed that we are taking it so late in the day with so few Members present.

As the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake—a former head of the Civil Service—wrote in the Guardian this afternoon:

“Sue Gray’s report is written in the measured and balanced way that you would expect from a longstanding civil servant … Event after event is juxtaposed against the prevailing rules at the time to devastating effect.”


What also jumps out from this report is: why did it take Boris Johnson six months to acknowledge what was going on? Instead of owning up and taking responsibility, we had to see a costly police investigation, which concluded that he was the first Prime Minister in our country’s history to have broken the law in office. Then we had to wait for the Sue Gray report.

During this time, we have seen Civil Service morale severely damaged and reputations trashed, including outrageous attacks on Sue Gray herself. I cannot improve on the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire’s description of the report in brief:

“Vomiting. Excessive boozing. Fisticuffs. Partying until 4.35 am (before Prince Philip’s funeral). Broken swing. Secret Santa. Cleaners & security staff bullied. Red wine on walls. Karaoke. Sitting on laps.”


There is also, of course:

“‘We seem to have got away with it’—Martin Reynolds”.


Lots of questions remain about the Prime Minister and others who believed that lockdown rules did not apply to them. That was driven in part by the idea that those working long hours, dealing with Covid-related issues had a pass-out to behave as they did and, in essence, to carry on regardless. That they would have condemned and clamped down on such behaviour if it had happened in the NHS, schools, local authorities and other public-serving workplaces is not in doubt.

When the dust settles and the anger—strongly felt by many of our communities—subsides, this report will stand as a monument to the arrogance of a Government who believed it was one rule for them and another for everyone else. It is pretty clear that the Prime Minister knew exactly what was happening in No. 10 throughout the lockdown period and that it was wrong, both legally and morally. Five months ago, he told the House of Commons that all guidance was followed completely in No. 10. I am sure many noble Lords opposite, if they were here, feel uncomfortable. I know that many of those who are not here feel uncomfortable, at the very least. I know that many feel far worse, especially those who served under previous, more honourable Prime Ministers.

In her response, I hope the Minister will comment further on how cleaners and security guards at No. 10 were able quickly to ascertain that those events were clear breaches of the lockdown rules and call them out. They were faced with what can be described only as entitled abuse, while the Prime Minister told Parliament that he was unsure what the rules were. In the light of Sue Gray’s conclusion, does the Minister agree that the promised apology to those hard-working custodians and cleaners in Downing Street should be formal and in writing? They have been subject to rudeness and disrespect from officials and advisers while they were simply trying to do their job.

Sue Gray’s report shows systematic law-breaking, with photographic evidence that the Prime Minister himself broke the rules on multiple occasions. Allegra Stratton is the only one to have resigned, despite this industrial-scale breaking of the rules. Does the Minister think this is right? When the Prime Minister said that he was taking personal responsibility, what did that mean, beyond those words? What action will he take? Allegra Stratton did take personal responsibility. As Keir Starmer said:

“No. 10 symbolises the principles of public life in this country—selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.”


Nobody, but nobody, reading this report can honestly believe that the Prime Minister has upheld them.

Our constitution relies on Members of Parliament and the custodians of No. 10 behaving responsibly, honestly and in the interests of the British people. When our leaders fall short of these standards, Parliament has a duty to act. Without these standards, not only is our democracy weakened but our global reputation is impacted. The trust and confidence that this nation has built is severely weakened if the man who represents us is not believed by other global leaders.

I address these remarks to the noble Lords opposite. They must now use their influence on colleagues in the other place to stop this out-of-touch, out-of-control Prime Minister from driving Britain towards disaster. The values symbolised by the door of No. 10 must be restored. Only then can we restore the dignity of that great office and the democracy it represents.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, finally we have the Gray report. The country owes Sue Gray a tremendous debt of gratitude for undertaking her task fearlessly and thoroughly. It was typically dishonourable of the Prime Minister to try and persuade her at the 11th hour not to publish it at all, and typically courageous of her to do so. Will the Government at least release the minutes of her meeting with the Prime Minister, so that we can be clear exactly what took place?

On one level, today’s report does not tell us anything new. We already knew that there have been multiple parties in Downing Street, and that the culture was the opposite of that which the Government were enjoining on the rest of the population. We already knew that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary, far from instilling a culture in tune with both their messaging and the legislation, were encouraging what was going on. And we already knew that, by denying what had happened, the Prime Minister was misleading both Parliament and the country. What the report does is provide the gory details—and gory they are.

The Prime Minister’s defence today is that Downing Street is a large, busy building; that it was appropriate to have farewell parties, that he did not stay long at the parties, and that he had no idea what happened after he had left. If this were any other large organisation, in either the public or private sector, these risibly feeble excuses would have meant that heads at the top would roll. That they have not is a major indictment of the Prime Minister, his Government and the Conservative Party.

By refusing to resign, the Prime Minister has weakened his own standing, that of his party, that of the country, and that of politics and politicians more generally. It is clearly of huge importance that this loss of reputation and standing be reversed. In the first instance, this can only happen if the Prime Minister is replaced, and this can only happen if he is ejected by his Commons colleagues or the electorate. As far as his Commons colleagues are concerned, it seems that there is in reality virtually nothing which the Prime Minister could do which would impel them to act. This is most strange, as the only reason the Prime Minister became leader of his party was that many people who knew him to be a charlatan and a liar held their noses, because they thought he was an election winner.

If they have been out on the doorstep recently, they will have found that this situation no longer obtains. Yet, with one or two notable exceptions, they sit on their hands. They are therefore all complicit in the duplicities of this Government. If his MPs do not act, the Prime Minister will be removed only by the electorate. Recent elections have shown what voters already think of him, and with every electoral contest, whether by-election, local elections or the next election itself, there will now be a reckoning for the Conservative Party. The sadness is that, until the general election comes, we will be stuck with this morally bankrupt and rudderless Government.

But if the Prime Minister comes badly out of this saga, so too, I fear, do the Metropolitan Police. They turned a blind eye to the parties when they first happened. Under intense public pressure, they initiated an investigation, but the fines which they imposed, concentrated as they were on junior and female staff who co-operated fully with them, compared to other more senior people who clearly did not, look arbitrary and incomplete.

They failed to explain themselves, so they cannot rebut the inevitable suspicion, widely felt across the country, that the policy on fines was driven not by a strict interpretation of the law but by a political impulse to let the Prime Minister off lightly. They are now facing legal challenges into the way they behaved. They should pre-empt these now by coming clean on the rationale for their partygate policies.

The Prime Minister, understandably, wishes to draw a line under this sorry saga and in his mind he has probably already done so. But the public have not, and there will be a reckoning.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I will attempt to address some of the points raised by the noble Lords. It is absolutely right, of course, that the Prime Minister has made a full and unreserved apology for what happened in No. 10. As noble Lords will have heard in his Statement, he repeatedly said that he takes full responsibility for everything that took place. He has acknowledged people’s hurt and anger, which I think we have heard from the comments, totally fairly, from the two noble Lords, and which I think a lot of us feel having also seen the report. He has offered a full and unreserved apology, and he has accepted that more time should have been taken to establish the full facts at the very beginning.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, asked about the meeting with Sue Gray that has been reported. The Prime Minister had a procedural update on timings and publication arrangements, prompted by No. 10 following a discussion at an official-level meeting, but the findings and content of the report were not discussed and the report has been published in full in exactly the form it was received.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, rightly mentioned the references to the security staff and the cleaning staff, and the Prime Minister has strongly condemned that behaviour. He said during Questions in the other place that he was going to apologise personally to those affected—I think at that point he had not had the names; I am sure he will. I believe that some of those conversations have already happened. Everyone is unhappy at and horrified by what they read. He said quite strongly that he was going to take action himself, but that he also expected those who were involved in these situations to do so as well.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked what has happened since. The Prime Minister has taken steps since the publication of the report to address some of the specific shortcomings identified, and a number of them were mentioned in the report. For instance, there is a new Permanent Secretary charged with applying the high standards of government, and there are now easier ways for staff to raise concerns. Things are being done, and that was one of the things that Sue Gray has acknowledged and welcomed. She has said that change needs to be embedded now, so that these things can really take hold.