Theresa May questions PM over lockdown breaches

ONE OF THE borough’s MPs has questioned Boris Johnson over covid lockdown breaches in the House of Commons.

Theresa May, whose constituency includes part of the borough, asked the prime minister on Monday afternoon whether he thought the pandemic restrictions applied to Number 10.

It came after the preliminary report by Sue Gray was published earlier in the day. It looks at 16 events held at Downing Street over a 20-month period.

She said: “The covid regulations imposed significant restrictions on the freedoms of members of the public,” she said. “They had a right to expect their prime minister to have read the rules, to understand the meaning of the rules, and indeed those around him to have done so too, and to set an example in following those rules.

“What the Gray report does show is that Number 10 Downing Street was not observing the regulations they had imposed on members of the public.

“So either my Rt Hon friend had not read the rules, or did not understand what they meant and the others around him, or they didn’t think the rules applied to

Number 10. Which was it?”

Mr Johnson replied, and said:

“No Mr Speaker that is not what the Gray report says. I suggest she waits to see the conclusion of the enquiry.”

After Mrs May’s question, the Westminster leader of the SNP, Ian Blackford, was kicked out of the chamber for accusing the prime minister of lying to the Commons.

The report from Sue Gray states that lockdown gatherings represented a “serious failure” of officials to observe what had been asked of the public.

She states in the report that excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time, and that “a number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop the way that they did”.

The Gray report also states that “leadership structures [in No 10] are fragmented and complicated and this has sometimes led to the blurring of lines of accountability.

“There is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across government,” it states, adding: “This does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded.”