Sue Gray Report

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That evening was extensively investigated, to the best of my knowledge, and I do not believe I can improve on what Sue Gray has had to say.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

This is a damning report about the absence of leadership, focus and discipline in No. 10, the one place where we expect to find those attributes in abundance. I have made my position very clear to the Prime Minister: he does not have my support. A question I humbly put to my colleagues is: are you willing, day in day out, to defend this behaviour publicly? Can we continue to govern without distraction, given the erosion of the trust of the British people? And can we win a general election on this trajectory?

The question I place to the Prime Minister now—[Interruption.] I am being heckled by my own people. If we cannot work out what we are going to do, the broad church of the Conservative party will lose the next general election. My question to the Prime Minister is very clear: on the question of leadership, can he think of any other Prime Minister who would have allowed such a culture of indiscipline to take place on their watch? And if they did, would they not have resigned?

[The Prime Minister]

To answer the question that my right hon. Friend put to all of us on these Benches, I think the answer is overwhelmingly and emphatically yes, we are going to go on and win the next general election and we are going to get on with the job.