By Ben Kerrigan-
Boris Johnson has humbly admitted he made “a total mistake” to try to defend Owen Paterson from punishment for repeatedly breaking lobbying rules, adding that he fully accepted that what his former friend and collegaue had done was wrong.
In his open letter to Sir Lindsay on Tuesday, Mr Johnson gave his backing to suggested reforms by a 2018 report from the committee on standards in public life, which advises Downing Street on arrangements for upholding ethical standards of conduct among public servants.
Speaking before the Commons liaison committee today, Johnson said his attempt to replace the existing disciplinary system for MPs with a new, Tory-majority committee, had happened after he was told it would have cross-party support.
“I believed that there would be cross-party support for the idea,” Johnson told Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons standards committee, who reminded the prime minister that this had turned out not to be the case.
“So it would seem,” Johnson replied.
Asked why he believed other parties would back the plan, Johnson said: “It was put to me by colleagues.”, Johnson said he had also been influenced by the personal circumstances of Paterson, whose wife had killed herself last year.
“Yes, I think it was a total mistake not to see that the former member for North Shropshire’s breach of the rules made any discussion about anything else impossible. And I totally accept that,” Johnson told the liaison committee, a super-committee comprising the chairs of subject-specific select committees, which is tasked with questioning the prime minister three times a year.
“I think it was a very sad case, but I think there’s no question that he had fallen foul of the rules on paid advocacy, as far as I could see from the report,” Johnson said.
“I think the question that people wanted to establish was whether or not, given the particularly tragic circumstances, he’d had a fair right to appeal.”
When questioned about whether Paterson had not had a proper appeal by Bryant, whose committee had heard the appeal, Johnson said: “In forming the impression that the former member for North Shropshire had not had a fair process, I may well have been mistaken, but that was certainly the impression that many people seemed to have.”
Johnson also said the apology from Kwasi Kwarteng to Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, had been instructed by him.
Kwarteng had suggested in an interview she should resign after a government-led Commons vote overturned her sanction against Paterson..
When asked by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP who chairs the home affairs committee, Johnson said he fully accepted that Paterson had done wrong, answering: “Yes, I do.”
The committee’s proposed reforms to update the code of conduct to state that MPs’ outside earnings “should be within reasonable limits and should not prevent them from fully carrying out their range of duties”.
Mr Johnson also supported the report’s recommendation to update the code of conduct to ban MPs from “any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant”.
The PM wrote in his letter: “Adopting these specific recommendations would ensure that MPs who are neglecting their duties to their constituents and prioritising outside interests would be investigated, and appropriately punished by the existing disciplinary authorities
He also accepted error in being pictured not wearing a mask during a visit to a hospital in Northumberland last week, while telling Cooper that this had been brief.
“As for not wearing a mask in Hexham hospital, which you wrap up into my general litany of crime, can I just say that actually, it was barely 30 seconds when I wasn’t wearing a mask,” he said.
“I walked out of a room, mistakenly not wearing it, I then put it on as soon as I realised I’d made that mistake. I apologise for it, but most pictures of my visit to the hospital will show that I was duly masked throughout the remainder of the visit.”
Johnson’s admission of error is refreshing, but also raises questions as to whether he iss trong enough to resist suggestions from colleagues geared towards cross party support even when fundamentally wrong.