The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Labour calls for probe into cash for influence
Labour has called for a probe into “whether rich people can pay to get access to government ministers”.
WhatsApp messages released on Thursday showed Boris Johnson discussed a proposed “Great Exhibition 2.0” with Lord Brownlow at the same time as requesting his help with the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.
The conversation led to a meeting between the Conservative peer and then-culture secretary Oliver Dowden.
Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed said Labour has asked the parliamentary standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, to investigate the exchange.
Mr Reed said the text messages “matter immensely”, arguing they show Lord Brownlow
“appears to have access to the prime minister because he was paying for the flat renovations” at Downing Street.
Asked why the messages are problematic given that the Great Exhibition was not going ahead, Mr Reed said: “The issue is not whether it happened, it is whether rich people can pay to get access to government ministers to try and influence them over how they decide to spend taxpayers’ money.”
In a WhatsApp message sent on November 29 2020, Mr Johnson asked Lord Brownlow if he would give his approval for interior designer Lulu Lytle to begin work.
On January 18 2021, Lord Brownlow attended a meeting with Mr Dowden to discuss the peer’s Great Exhibition 2.0 proposal.
A spokesman for the prime minister said the Tory peer’s suggestion was “dealt with in the same way” as a member of the public’s would have been “in that a department will look at it and take a view on it”.
Business minister Paul Scully said: “Lord Brownlow made his own approaches and it wouldn’t have just gone to the prime minister, but the important thing is it’s not gone ahead.”
On Thursday, Mr Johnson was forced to issue a “humble and sincere apology” to his standards adviser, Lord Geidt, after he failed to inform him of the exchange with Lord Brownlow when he carried out an investigation into the funding of work last year.
Downing Street had hoped finally to draw a line under the matter after Lord
Geidt said it would not have changed his conclusion that Mr Johnson did not breach the Ministerial Code, although he made clear his deep unhappiness at the way the issue had been handled.
Dave Penman, chairman of the First Division Association (FDA), a union representing senior civil servants, said the episode demonstrated the need for the ethics adviser to be afforded powers to start his own investigations independently of the prime minister.
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme the “jury is out” on whether Lord Geidt should have resigned over the issue, with the conclusion depending on whether staying in post will allow him to “extract meaningful changes from the prime minister”.
Mr Penman said: “The prime minister would be wise, I think, to understand that public opinion is really not on his side, and he has got a real opportunity now to put all of this behind him and introduce a fully independent process that allows someone to investigate potential breaches of the ministerial code, and we’ll see whether he takes that up.”