PMQs live: Boris Johnson refuses to apologise to archbishop of Canterbury after criticising his stance on Rwanda policy

• Government whips are trying to decide what Tory MPs should do when the Commons votes tomorrow on a motion calling for a privileges committee inquiry into claims Boris Johnson misled parliament about Partygate. (See 1.07pm.)
  The government had been expected to order its MPs to vote it down, but Labour – and the six other opposition parties supporting the amendment (see 1.14pm) – have drafted it in such a way as to make it hard for Conservatives to vote against.

  First, the motion does not explicity accuse Johnson of intentionally misleading MPs. And, second, the motion says the inquiry should not start until the police inquiry into Partygate is over.

  In another move that should make the motion more acceptable to Tories, Chris Bryant, the Labour chair of the committee, and an outspoken critic of Johnson, has agreed to recuse himself from any inquiry. (See 4.14pm.)

  Tory MPs are wary of voting down the motion because that would lead to them to being accused by Labour of covering up Johnson’s lying. Government whips also know that, if they order MPs to vote against, many backbenchers might ignore them and abstain – which could see the opposition winning.

  No 10 is thought to be considering a ploy that would involve Tories voting for an amendment that might water down the potential threat posed by any inquiry, but details are not expected to be announced until later tonight.

• Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for Brexit opportunities has told the EU scrutiny committee the UK will “reform” the NI protocol unilaterally if the EU does not. As my colleague Lisa O’Carroll reports, this raises the spectre of some dramatic move after the Northern Ireland assembly elections on 5 May. He said:

We signed it on the basis that it would be reformed and there comes a point at which you say, well, you haven’t reformed it and therefore we are reforming it ourselves. And the United Kingdom is much more important than any agreement that we have with any foreign power.

Fire safety bailout to be extended to some low rise buildings, government says

Robert Booth

The government is set to extend its multibillion-pound fire safety bailout to some low rise buildings, it announced today.

Stuart Andrew, housing minister, told parliament the government will start to consider helping with safety works for buildings below 11m following pressure from MPs and campaigners concerned that potentially hazardous homes, including care homes and some residential schools, had not been not covered.

It could add many millions more to post-Grenfell costs to be shared by developers, taxpayers and leaseholders that MPs have estimated at £15bn.

UK Cladding Action Group said it already knew of at least 10 buildings below 11m where residents have been landed with bills as high as £20,000 each which would not have been covered by the government’s previous plan.

Last week Michael Gove, secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, announced he had secured £2bn in pledges from 36 developers towards fixing “life critical safety works” in high-rise buildings above 11m in England developed in the last 30 years.

Andrew stressed officials believe there was “no systematic risk of fire with buildings below 11m”, but “we will deal with those as a department on a case by case basis”. He pledged: “If the building safety regulator assesses … further work needs to be done we will make sure we do that.”

The prospect of the potential cost of the building safety crisis growing still further almost five years after the Grenfell Tower fire claimed 72 lives, came as residents of high rise buildings warned they face years of uncertainty despite progress by Gove in persuading developers to pay for some fixes.

Leaseholders rallied in Westminster as MPs finalised new building safety laws which look likely to pass within weeks without guaranteeing universal immunity.

Campaigners fear the stress on “life critical” works could cause disputes.

“Unless there is an independent body to arbitrate we see these issues dragging on for years,” said Rituparna Saha, co-founder of the UK Cladding Action Group. “Even where developers have [already] said they will pay works have not yet started.”

Aspects of the elections bill represent “an unacceptable risk to the functioning of our democracy”, a Commons committee has said.

William Wragg, the Conservative MP who chairs the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, made the point in an open letter to Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, about the bill, which is close to finishing its passage through parliament.

Writing on behalf of the committee, Wragg said it was particularly worried about powers in the bill allowing ministers to draft a “strategy and policy statement” to be followed by the Electoral Commission, the body that regulates elections. He told Gove:

The Electoral Commission has now written to you also stating its “firm view” that the strategy and policy statement “is inconsistent with the role that an independent Electoral Commission plays in a healthy democracy”. It would, they argue “provide a mechanism driven by the then governing party enabling that parties ministers to shape how the electoral law is applied to them and their political competitors”. The risk inherent in these provisions is evident for all to see. This is an unacceptable risk to the functioning of our democracy, regardless of the government’s statements regarding their particular approach to the strategy and policy statement.

In a report published in December the committee, which has a Conservative majority, said the “strategy and policy statement” proposals in the bill should be dropped. The government has not accepted this recommendation, and in his letter Wragg says, as an alternative, the government should amend the bill to make it clear that the Electoral Commission can ignore the “strategy and policy statement” in certain circumstances.

Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons privileges committee, has said that if MPs vote for it to carry out an inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs about Partygate, he will recuse himself as chair for that inquiry. This is because previous statements has had made about Johnson being a liar (like this one) would mean that he would be seen a biased.

In an open letter to colleagues, he says that he thinks he would have been able to chair the inquiry fairly, but that it is important it is important for the committee to be seen to proceed “without any imputation of unfairness”.

I understand that some honourable and right honourable members have questioned whether I should chair such an inquiry into the prime minister, given that I have made several statements in the media on this matter.

I am certain that if the house were to refer this matter to the committee, all of us would be entirely diligent in setting aside our personal feelings and allegiances, and discharging our duty to protect the reputation of the house without fear or favour.

However, it is also important that the house be seen to proceed fairly without any imputation of unfairness and that the whole house have confidence in the committee of privileges’ proceedings. I have therefore decided that if the motion to refer is carried tomorrow, I will recuse myself from any consideration of the matter.

Bryant also chairs the Commons standards committee (which has the same MPs sitting on it as the privileges committee, but with added lay members). Last year it published a report into allegations that Boris Johnson failed to properly declare who paid for his holiday in Mustique in December 2019. The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Kathryn Stone, said Johnson had broken the MPs’ code of conduct, but the committee came up with a more favourable verdict, clearing the PM of breaking the rules.

There are four Conservative MPs on the committee, and three opposition ones (including Bryant). With Bryant recusing himself, Sir Bernard Jenkin (Con) is expected to chair the inquiry if it goes ahead. Bryant says he will continue to chair the committee for other business.

Talking of Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader has given an interview to John Pienaar for Times Radio in which he has effectively called for Nato to be disbanded. Asked if he favoured disbanding Nato, or the UK withdrawing from it, Corbyn replied:

I would want to see a world where we start to ultimately disband all military alliances. The issue has to be what’s the best way of bringing about peace in the future? Is it by more alliances? Is it by more military build up?

Or is it by stopping the war in Ukraine and the other wars …

And ask yourself the question, do military alliances bring peace? Or do they actually encourage each other and build up to a greater danger? I don’t blame Nato for the fact that Russia has invaded Ukraine. What I say is look at the thing historically, and look at the process that could happen at the end of the Ukraine war.

Pressed again on whether he favoured disbanding Nato now, Corbyn said: “Look, it’s not going to be disbanded now.” But he repeated his point about military alliances, saying they “tend to build up a mirror image of each other”.

Corbyn has had the Labour whip withdrawn, and originally he was told that he would not have it restored, enabling him to stand as a Labour candidate at the next election, until he apologised for suggesting, when the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its report on antisemitism in the Labour party, that the problem had been exaggerated.

But in a recent interview with the Guardian Keir Starmer hinted Corbyn’s views on Nato could also prevent him from being readmitted to the parliamentary party. “There is no place in the Labour party for this false equivalence between Russian aggression and Nato,” Starmer said.

As Patrick Maguire from the Times reports, in his interview Corbyn also sidestepped a question about whether he admired the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Nicola Sturgeon has insisted there is a “very, very clear difference” between her face mask “error” and the apparent “serial culture of lawbreaking” at Downing Street lockdown parties, PA Media reports.

In an interview with STV, Sturgeon said:

I have recognised I made an error in not having a mask on for literally a few seconds.

I was campaigning in the street, my mask was in my pocket, I got shouted into a barbers, I was talking to people, and for a few seconds I forgot to put my mask back on.

I do think it is important for me to recognise that was wrong, and I shouldn’t, even for those few seconds, have lapsed in that.

People will make up their own minds about that. My view, and what I would say to people, is that I don’t think it is equivalent to what Boris Johnson is accused of, the what appears to be serial culture of law breaking in No 10, but then the misleading of parliament.

I do think there is a very, very clear difference there and I think it is reasonable for me to point that out.

It must be confusing being a Conservative MP at times. Are you supposed to hate the BBC or not? Earlier this year, on day one of what was dubbed “Operation Red Meat”, the No 10 operation to shore up Boris Johnson’s position with a rightwing policy offer for Tory MPs, Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, said the BBC licence fee was definitely going. A day later she had to soften her position somewhat, after the Treasury insisted the future of the licence fee was just being reviewed. This morning Tory MPs will have read in the Daily Telegraph that Johnson believes the BBC has been soft on Vladimir Putin. At PMQs Johnson insisted that was wrong, and at the end of the session a loyalist backbencher used a point of order to insist that Conservative MPs are in fact great fans of the corporation. (See 12.43pm.)

In part, this might be an indication of how the cerebral cortex of the Conservative party has enough nous to realise that the attack lines that play well with the headline writers for rightwing newspapers are not always popular with the public. The BBC has been widely praised for its coverage of the Ukraine war, and there are no votes to be gained in slagging it off on this. But it also seems that Johnson’s views have been misrepresented by his old paper. While Johnson evidently did criticise both the BBC and the Church of England for their negative coverage of the Rwanda policy at this meeting with Tory MPs last night, the more nuanced reporting stressed that his pro-Putin jibe was aimed specifically at the clergy – and in particular the archbishop of Canterbury. (See 9.2oam.)

This explains why Johnson was so indignant – and why he came out with a clear denial. Starmer said to him:

The prime minister also accused the BBC of not being critical enough of Putin. Would the prime minister have the guts to say that to the face of [BBC reporters] Clive Myrie, Lyse Doucet and Steve Rosenberg, who have all risked their lives day in, day out on the frontline in Russia and Ukraine uncovering Putin’s barbarism?

Johnson replied:

I said nothing of the kind and I have the highest admiration as a former journalist for what journalists do. I think they do an outstanding job. I think he should withdraw what he just said – it has absolutely no basis or foundation in truth.

Some people will have watched and concluded that Johnson was slandered. But – as has sadly been explained here before – the effectiveness of an attack line is not always related to its accuracy, and Starmer probably won this particular exchange on points. (Johnson’s problem is that, even if he did not criticise the BBC in the way it was alleged, it is easy to imagine how he might have done.) Starmer was even more effective with this early Partygate questions, and he did help to establish that, although Johnson may deny accusing the BBC of being pro-Putin, he is not ashamed of saying that about the Church of England. (See 12.09pm.)

Johnson seemed to enjoy today’s PMQs more than yesterday’s 100-minute apologising session. His jibe about Starmer being “a Corbynista in a smart Islington suit”, which he repeated, did not really work (because it is obviously not true), but the joke about Starmer being stuck in a “Dr Who timewarp” was good. And there will be viewers who will have agreed with his overall argument, that it is time to move on from Partygate. But it is a Tory argument with minority, partisan appeal. If polling is a reliable guide, there are more people for whom this won’t wash.

And this is what Keir Starmer said in a statement about the Labour motion.

We are urging Conservative MPs to do the right thing. To respect the sacrifice that their constituents made during the pandemic. To say that the public were right to follow the rules. And to vote in the national interest not under pressure from the party whips.

The British public know that the rules were broken in Downing Street. Voting to say otherwise won’t persuade the public that everything was fine but will further damage the reputation of any Conservative MP who is happy to say it was one rule for the public and another for this government.

Tomorrow’s vote is an important step to restoring decency, honesty and integrity into our politics.

Although Keir Starmer has tabled the motion for debate in the Commons, it is backed by a total of seven opposition parties. Here are the other people who have signed it

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westmister
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader
Liz Saville-Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster
Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader
Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP
Stephen Farry, the Alliance party MP

Labour has published the text of the motion that MPs will debate tomorrow proposing an inquiry into claims Boris Johnson lied to MPs about Partygate. Here it is.

That, this House

(1) notes that, given the issue of fixed penalty notices by the police in relation to events in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, assertions the Rt hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip has made on the floor of the House about the legality of activities in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office under Covid regulations, including but not limited to the following answers given at Prime Minister’s Questions: 1 December 2021, that all guidance was followed in No. 10., Official Report vol. 704, col. 909; 8 December 2021 that I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken, Official Report vol. 705, col. 372; 8 December 2021 that I am sickened myself and furious about that, but I repeat what I have said to him: I have been repeatedly assured that the rules were not broken, Official Report vol. 705, col. 372 and 8 December 2021 the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times, Official Report vol. 705, col. 379, appear to amount to misleading the House; and

(2) orders that this matter be referred to the Committee of Privileges to consider whether the hon Member’s conduct amounted to a contempt of the House, but that the Committee shall not begin substantive consideration of the matter until the inquiries currently being conducted by the Metropolitan Police have been concluded.

There are two features of the motion intended to make it less objectionable to Tory MPs.

As my colleague Aubrey Allegretti explained earlier (see 11.33am), the Tories were planning to water down the proposal by tabling an amendment calling for the inquiry to be delayed until the police investigation is over. Labour has has headed this off by incorporating a delay into its own motion.

Significantly, the motion also says the inquiry should cover claims that Johnson misled the Commons. It does not explicitly accuse Johnson of deliberately misleading the Commons – a much more serious offence that amounts to an resignation offence under the ministerial code. Since Johnson himself has effectively conceded that the house was misled, it will be hard for the government to explain to Tory MPs why they should vote against