Around 30 people including PM warned over contents of Gray Partygate report
Around 30 people including Prime Minister Boris Johnson are being contacted by the Cabinet Office to warn them of the contents of the Sue Gray partygate report.
It is thought that most of the letters were sent out on Thursday, as the Metropolitan Police concluded its investigation into lockdown breaches in Downing Street and across Whitehall.
Mr Johnson is set to be among those approached by the Cabinet Office team but, last night, No 10 had no update as to whether he had received a letter.
It is understood the Prime Minister and Ms Gray held at least one meeting to update on the report's progress while it was being drafted, but that its contents were not discussed at any point.
Such meetings would not have been viewed as unusual, a source said, with the aim to take stock of what stage the report was at.
Not everyone contacted by the Cabinet Office will necessarily be named or identified by some other means in the report - it may merely be that their actions are referenced because they are pertinent to the narrative of a particular event.
The investigators are understood not to be including the full details of the contents in the letters but instead are giving a "gist" of the relevant sections to those being approached.
Earlier, Mr Johnson insisted he would not seek to block names appearing in the senior
civil servant's report, and said he was "looking forward" to seeing its contents "pretty soon".
The Prime Minister said he was "very grateful" for the Met's investigation, which concluded with 126 fines.
There were demands for answers over how the PM escaped with just one fixedpenalty notice (FPN) despite being believed to have been
present at multiple rulebreaking events.
Potentially damaging further details, including the names of some of those who attended gatherings, will be published in the Gray report.
Sources close to the investigation expect it will be published early next week.
Mr Johnson declined to apologise again for the rulebreaking in No 10 during a visprosecutions
it to Hilltop Honey's factory in Newtown in Powys, Wales, on Friday.
Asked if No 10 would be blocking any names from appearing in the report, he said: "That will be entirely up to Sue Gray and I'll be looking forward very much to seeing what she has to say, and fingers crossed that will be pretty soon next week."
Officials affected by the Gray inquiry, including those to be named, are being written to so they can have a chance to respond before the current draft is finalised for publication.
There were calls for Scotland Yard to explain how Mr Johnson received just the one fine, for his 56th birthday gathering in June 2020 when indoor mixing was banned.
Former director of public Lord Ken Macdonald warned "it's very difficult for us to disentangle exactly how the police investigation has proceeded and how fair it's been. Without the police providing an explanation for that it's very difficult for us to understand why they came to the conclusions that they did."