Raab dismisses ‘gossip’ as he defends Johnson over flat revamp costs
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media captionDominic Raab said he would not “speculate” on the three reviews into the work on the prime minister’s flat
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has insisted Boris Johnson followed the rules over changes to his flat, saying newspaper stories were “gossip”.
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Raab said the prime minister would “engage fully” with inquiries into who initially paid for the Downing Street renovations.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservative leader said the PM should resign if he is found to have broken the rules.
Labour said the public “need to know who the prime minister is beholden to”.
Mr Johnson has insisted he paid for renovations to the Downing Street flat himself, but there are still questions over whether the costs were initially covered by party donors.
On Wednesday, the Electoral Commission – the watchdog overseeing political finances – announced an investigation into the Conservative Party’s compliance with laws on political donations, having said there are “reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence or offences may have occurred”.
The government’s top civil servant Simon Case and the prime minister’s newly-appointed adviser on ministers’ interests Lord Geidt are also looking into the issue.
‘Highest standards’
Asked by the BBC’s Andrew Marr whether Mr Johnson should resign if the Electoral Commission says that he broke the law, Scottish Conservative Party leader Douglas Ross said “of course”.
“People expect the highest standards of those in the highest office of the land,” he added.
Mr Ross previously called on Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the SNP, to step down after a majority of MSPs on a committee accused her of misleading their inquiry into the Scottish government’s handling of sexual harassment complaints made against former First Minister Alex Salmond.
Mr Raab told the BBC’s Andrew Marr he would not “speculate on what the outcome of the various different reviews are”.
“I think the right thing for me to do is respect the integrity of those reviews and let them run their course rather than commenting on what may or may not be found at the end of it,” he added.
He added he trusted the Electoral Commission “to look at these things in the right way”.
Mr Raab also told Sky’s Sophy Ridge that he had “no idea” if Conservative donors were asked to help pay for the prime minister’s child care costs.
The Sunday Times has reported that supporters of the party had been asked to foot the bill for a nanny for Mr Johnson’s son.
The foreign secretary dismissed the report as “tittle tattle”, telling Sky News: “I can’t comment on every little bit of gossip that’s in the newspapers.”
Responding to the story, Downing Street said: “The prime minister has covered the cost of all childcare.”
Also appearing on Sky News, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said: “We need to know who the prime minister is beholden to, we need to know what he has promised in return.”
“There’s an arrogance at the heart of this that he seems to believe that we don’t deserve to know the truth about what goes on in government.”
The prime minister has also received criticism from the former Commons Speaker John Bercow.
image copyrightPA Media image captionMr Bercow, who stepped down from the role in 2019, frequently clashed with the prime minister when he was Speaker of the House of Commons
Talking to BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme, Mr Bercow said of the flat row: “First of all we don’t know who paid the initial bill because the prime minister and his acolytes persisted with the refrain that he ended up picking up the bill.
“That is both true and irrelevant – we know that, we’ve heard it, we’ve got it… the point is who initially did so creating either the fact or the appearance of indebtedness and an obligation on the prime minister in the future.”
He also accused the prime minister of demonstrating “an insouciant, a flippant, a casual disregard for the accuracy of what he says”.