Sue Gray Report

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look back, many years hence, on, from this period, the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe, which was not half bad; being the first country anywhere in the world to put an approved vaccine in anybody’s arm; and coming out of covid faster than any other European country. Those are already very considerable achievements, to say nothing of delivering Brexit, which the hon. Lady would not have done and neither would the Labour party.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister was asked whether he thought any other Prime Minister would have allowed such rule breaking on their watch. I was a senior civil servant for two Prime Ministers—Gordon Brown and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—and I can tell the Prime Minister that when I was a senior civil servant no such behaviour would have occurred. What is clear to me in the Sue Gray report is the number of comments by civil servants who knew that they were doing something wrong. They said:

“we seem to have got away with”

it; this is

“somewhat of a comms risk”;

people should not be

“walking around waving bottles of wine”

in front of cameras—and it goes on. They knew they were doing something wrong; did the Prime Minister, at any stage and at any of the events he attended, think he was doing something wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

No, and I have tried to be clear with the House about that. By the way, the hon. Lady talks about serving previous Prime Ministers; I thank her for her service, but I want to assure her that I have never thrown a stapler at anybody, or an ashtray.