PM to face standards watchdog after not declaring holiday cost
BORIS JOHNSON has been reported to the House of Commons standards watchdog after refusing to declare the cost of his holiday at a villa in Marbella.
The Prime Minister was last night facing the prospect of new sleaze investigations, pushed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats as the opposition parties try to keep up the pressure after the resignation of Owen Paterson over a lobbying scandal.
Mr Johnson has also been reported to Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary standards commissioner, over the redecoration of the PM’S flat in Downing Street, which has already been investigated by the electoral watchdog.
Opposition parties are trying to capitalise on Mr Johnson’s failure to overhaul the standards system and save the political career of Mr Paterson, who quit Parliament on Thursday.
Last month, Mr Johnson jetted off to the south of Spain with his pregnant wife, Carrie, and his son Wilfred to stay at a luxury villa owned by Conservative peer Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park.
The latest update on the register of ministerial interests revealed the accommodation that the Johnsons enjoyed was provided free of charge by the family of Lord Goldsmith.
However, Labour said that the declaration should have been made in Mr Johnson’s Commons register, which would then have allowed Ms Stone to check that all was in order.
Downing Street has insisted this was not necessary, with a spokesman for Mr Johnson saying: “Earlier this year, the Prime Minister received hospitality from a long-standing friend who provided use of their holiday home.
“The Prime Minister met the transparency requirements in relation to this, he declared this arrangement in his ministerial capacity, given this was hospitality provided by another minister.”
The spokesman declined to answer, when asked how much the holiday was worth, but added: “Given the hospitality was provided by another minister, it’s right that the PM made this declaration in his ministerial capacity to ensure sufficient transparency.”
The Marbella holiday was not declared to Parliament because the Johnsons had stayed on “a family holiday at the home of long-standing family friends and is unconnected with a PM’S parliamentary and political activities”.
The spokesman added: “The PM has written to the House of Commons registrar to set out that this holiday has been declared under the ministerial code, because the arrangement is with another minister.”
The Prime Minister made Lord Goldsmith a life peer shortly after, as Zac Goldsmith MP, he lost the seat of Richmond Park in a defeat to the Liberal Democrats in 2019. That paved the way for Mr Johnson to hand Lord Goldsmith a job in government, first in the Foreign Office and then in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Angela Rayner, the Labour deputy leader, said the refusal to declare the holiday “appears to be a breach of the House Code of Conduct”. She demanded Ms Stone start an investigation, telling her in a letter: “It is worth noting that Lord Goldsmith was given a peerage and a ministerial job by Mr Johnson.
“The public could understandably draw the conclusion in this case that the Prime Minister is dishing out cushy jobs to his friends who pay for his luxury holidays.”
No 10 refused to say whether the registrar in Parliament had accepted the arrangement. Ms Stone did not return a request for comment.