Steve Baker says Boris Johnson ‘should be long gone’ as MPs set to vote for inquiry into claims PM misled parliament – live

Someone will have to update the tally of government U-turns because – to the surprise of most observers at Westminster – Downing Street performed a remarkable one this morning, withdrawing an important amendment that it had tabled only about 15 hours earlier. The decision will embarrass some of the Tories who were defending the government line (that Labour’s motion should be rejected) until about 11am. It means the Labour motion will go through.

None of this is simple, and so here is a quick Q&A explaining where we are.

Q: What is happening now?

MPs are debating a motion, tabled by Labour but backed by six other opposition parties, saying there should be an inquiry into claims Boris Johnson misled MPs when he told them there were no parties in No 10.

Q: What changed this morning?

Until this morning the government was planning to use its majority to vote down the opposition proposal. Instead it was going to tell its MPs to vote for its own amendment saying the decision should be postponed.

Q: Why did the government change its mind?

We have not had an exact explanation yet, but if Tory MPs had voted against the Labour plan, they would have been accused of blocking an inquiry (even though the amendment only called for the decision about having an inquiry to be postponed, not shelved for good). And the Tory whips may have worried about losing the vote – because many of their MPs did not want to vote for a delay, because that would be used against them by their opponents.

Q: Where does this leave the government?

On the plus side, it avoids a Tory split. If the government amendment had gone to a vote, many Tory MPs would have abstained.

But this debacle suggests that – on this matter, at least – Downing Street has lost control of its parliamentary party.

And – reverting to the big picture – Johnson is going to be the first prime minister in recent times to be investigated by parliament for potentially lying to MPs.

Q: What will happen next?

The motion says the privileges committee should investigate claims that Johnson misled MPs.

The privileges committee contains the same seven MPs who sit on the Commons standards committee and it has the same chair, Chris Bryant. The standards committee investigates claims that MPs have broken the code of conduct for MPs. The privileges committee investigates complaints about contempt of parliament (an ancient concept, involving disrespecting MPs). Knowingly misleading MPs would be a contempt of parliament. (It is also a breach of the ministerial code, but the ministerial code is policed by government, not parliament.)

Bryant says he will recuse himself from this inquiry, because his anti-Johnson comments in the past would lead to him being accused of bias, and Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Conservative, is expected to chair the inquiry instead.

But the inquiry will not start until the police investigation into Partygage is over.

Q: How will the inquiry proceed?

The police say they still have a lot of Partygate evidence to consider, and so the committee inquiry will probably not start for months.

When it does start, it may take much of its evidence in private (as the Commons standards committee does).

It seems inevitable that it will conclude that MPs were misled. The key issue, though, will be for it to decide whether or not Johnson misled MPs intentionally.

It will produce a report, and make a recommendation for the Commons as a whole. If it decides Johnson misled MPs unintentionally, it will probably just ask for the record to be corrected. But if it concludes that he misled MPs intentionally, it will propose a sanction, to be voted on by the whole house. Regardless of what happened then, Johnson would be under intense pressure to resign.

The committee has four Conservative members, two Labour ones (one of whom, Bryant, will not take part in the inquiry), and one SNP one. The members are used to acting on a non-partisan basis (as the standards committee they adjudicate on MPs who have broken the code of conduct), but for a Conservative-dominated committee to effectively bring down a prime minister would still be quite something.

Q: Will there be a division this afternoon?

It seems unlikely that any Conservative MPs will want to vote against the motion this afternoon. Normally in those circumstances a motion will go through on the nod.

However Keir Starmer said earlier he would like a division to take place – so MPs can show where they stand.

But a party can only orchestrate a division when there are no MPs planning to vote the other way by getting a large number of MPs to shout “no” when the Speaker calls the motion, and MPs who shout no in these circumstances are not supposed to do that and subsequently vote yes. If there are clearly more MPs shouting “aye” than “no”, then the Speaker will declare the motion carried without calling a division.