Boris Johnson has been grilled by a committee of MPs on whether he intentionally misled Parliament over lockdown-era gatherings at No 10
He was pressed repeatedly over how he could not have known that various events - including leaving dos - breached guidance and rules
But he strongly defended certain events as having been "essential", including one where he was pictured raising a glass at a leaving do
He was also pushed on whom he took advice from before making denials in the Commons, with chair Harriet Harman saying he relied on "flimsy assurances"
"You did not take proper advice," Tory MP Bernard Jenkin told Johnson, to which the ex-PM responded: "This is complete nonsense"
Johnson swore on a Bible at the start of the session that he would tell the truth - and he insisted he "did not lie" to the House of Commons
He insisted that everything he said to Parliament was "in good faith" and on the advice of his officials
Boris Johnson earlier explained he felt it was essential to thank and motivate staff with events during the pandemic.
He was then asked if several bottles of alcohol were necessary for a work event.
Johnson concluded by saying: "It's customary to say farewell to people in this country with a toast".
"It's customary to say farewell to people in this country with a toast," says Johnson
Ione Wells
Political correspondent
Boris Johnson is bullish that his claim he was given "repeated assurances" no rules were broken is true - and that nobody gave any advice “to the contrary”.
But one angle the committee has introduced is why he relied on assurances from political advisers he appointed, rather than senior civil servants who have to be impartial, or government lawyers.
Johnson says it was important he got assurances from someone who was an eyewitness to specific events.
He also introduces a possible further bit of evidence, saying he was also given assurances by a No 10 official, but doesn’t want to breach their anonymity. That sounds like something the committee will want to follow up on.
Back to the committee, Johnson is asked why he relied on assurances from political advisers who dealt with the media rather than a permanent civil servant or a government lawyer over the issue of Covid compliance at one gathering.
"The simple answer is when I needed to discover whether the rules were broken I asked the senior adviser who was there and that was Jack Doyle," Johnson says, referring to the former Downing Street director of communications.
Johnson says Doyle confirmed in a WhatsApp that he was assured there was no party and no rules were broken.
Johnson says he then rang James Slack - another former director of communications - both people Johnson says he has the utmost regard for, and who he believes would be completely straight with him.
He says the reason he didn't ask a lawyer or another civil servant was because Doyle and Slack had been at the gathering and could give a view of the legality of the event.
Brian Wheeler
Politics reporter
Away from the committee for a moment for some breaking news.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has published the details of his UK tax affairs after promising to be open about his finances. It shows he paid more than £1m in UK tax over the past three financial years.
He first promised to publish his tax returns during his unsuccessful Tory leadership campaign last year.
But the timing of the release - when all eyes are on Boris Johnson - will raise questions about whether Downing Street is attempting to "bury" the story.
No 10 have been telling journalists for weeks that they would publish the material when the time was right.
On a quieter day, the story might have led bulletins and websites.
But with the media's focus on Johnson's Partygate grilling and the Commons vote on Sunak's Northern Ireland deal, it may pass many people by.
Tory MP Alberto Costa has taken over questioning Johnson now.
He opens by raising the former PM's claims he had been "repeatedly assured" the rules were not broken on several occasions when speaking in the House of Commons.
He asks if any of the government's lawyers gave him any assurances the gatherings were within the rules or guidance?
Johnson says no - but adds he didn't seek them out to ask, or ever claim he had done so.
Costa then asks if the head of the civil service, Simon Case, or any other career senior civil servant, had given him these assurances?
Johnson points to his former adviser Martin Reynolds but says he doesn't remember being specifically assured by any senior civil servant about the rules or guidance in Number 10.
Simon Case has told the committee he gave no such assurances.
Ione Wells
Political correspondent
As perhaps expected, photographs of him at Downing Street leaving dos have proved to be some of the most challenging pieces of evidence for Boris Johnson.
He’s been really pushed on his claim that social distancing was followed "wherever possible".
He talks about how "we didn’t touch each other’s pens" and "we didn’t pass things to each other". But the committee does not appear to be hugely convinced that the photographs show social distancing being put into practice "wherever possible".
Conservative MP Andy Carter accepts that a busy prime minister may have had to rely on advisers to guide him through his day.
However, he asks whether at any point Boris Johnson questioned any of the events advisers were taking him to.
"Hindsight's a wonderful thing," Johnson replies, adding that in retrospect he might have thought about it.
"But no, at the time I thought we were working," he says.
Johnson is asked why he told the Commons he believed the gathering in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020 was a work event.
That's the so-called "BYOB party" which around 100 people were invited to by email.
Johnson reiterates that he "implicitly believed that it was a work event" and that this was "an appropriate use" of the garden.
He explains that he was "ushered out into the garden" and thanked various groups of people who had been working on the Covid response.
Looking back at the event, he accepts to the public it looks like something they were not allowed to do.
However, he stresses this is only "in retrospect" and he didn't feel that way at the time.
We are now more than two hours into this session - excluding interruptions for Commons votes. Here are some key points so far:
Johnson was asked earlier about his former senior aide Martin Reynolds saying the former PM had agreed to delete the reference that all Covid guidance had been followed from his opening statement before he appeared at PMQs on 8 December 2020 as the Partygate scandal was emerging.
He says it's true that Reynolds was "cautious" about what he should say to the House of Commons but was focused on social distancing and if that had been maintained.
Johnson went on to say to the Commons that the guidance had always been followed in response to a question, despite deleting the line from his opening statement.
He's asked if, on reflection, he wished he corrected the record at that point.
Johnson says he doesn't. He says he didn't know in what sense the guidance had been broken and had no evidence it had been broken.
He says no-one was advising him to correct the record.
Downing Street party: Video shows staff joking at mock press conference
Moving on to the video of a mock press conference which leaked in December 2021, where Number 10 staff appeared to joke about a party in Downing Street in December 2020, Tory MP Andy Carter asks what Johnson did to prepare for questions about gatherings in Prime Minister's Questions after the video emerged.
Johnson says he decided he was "getting conflicting information" about the event and he was relying on descriptions from advisers who had a "difference of opinion".
Pressed on why he, at that point, didn't tell the House of Commons about the gatherings he'd attended, Johnson says they didn't appear to be "improper or offensive events" to him - which is why they were not brought up in the House of Commons.
He repeats he thought they were work events, and still does to this day.
Johnson reiterates that he was told the events in No 10 were within the rules.
He says Jack Doyle told him at one event, people were sitting at their desks drinking but that was not banned.
"It was regular, I'm afraid. for people to drink on Fridays," he says.
Johnson says it sounded to him that the event was within both the rules and guidance. This is a key line of questioning for the committee because Johnson told the Commons that the guidance, not just the rules, were followed in No 10.
Asked why he said Covid guidance was followed at all times, Johnson says: "I was misremembering the line that had already been put out to the media that Covid rules had been followed at all times."
Reality Check
Boris Johnson was earlier asked about a gathering in the Downing Street press office on 18 December 2020 and the fact that he told the House of Commons that all guidance was followed in No 10.
He said he didn't attend the event and says he remembers it was an evening where they were dealing with the emergence of the Delta variant of Covid and fears over a no-deal Brexit.
Johnson says he has no memory of seeing any kind of "party or illicit gathering" taking place, adding he first learned of it more than a year later from an adviser.
The event featured alcohol, a Secret Santa gift exchange, and an awards ceremony, with people working elsewhere in the building complaining about the noise it generated.
A cleaner noted the following morning that red wine had been spilled on one wall and on a number of boxes of photocopier paper.
Not only was there nothing in the guidance suggesting such an event would be acceptable, the guidance for England, external at the time said specifically: "You must not have a work Christmas lunch or party, where that is a primarily social activity and is not otherwise permitted by the rules in your tier".
Image source, House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA WireThe committee's chair Harriet Harman is up now, telling Johnson the committee is set to examine his assertions to the House of Commons that Covid rules were followed at all times in Number 10.
She says they will focus on what he says on the December 1 and December 8 2020.
She tells Johnson that Tory MP Andy Carter will take the next set of questions
Johnson disagrees with evidence from an official who attended this event and said the gathering was not strictly about work.
The ex-PM says it was essential to thank staff throughout the pandemic and says there wasn't many of these occasions.
Quote Message"It wasn't just staff who were leaving who needed to be appreciated but staff who were there who needed to be motivated."
Boris Johnson
Johnson is asked about the multiple bottles of alcohol in the photograph and if it was necessary for a work event.
Quote Message"It customary to say farewell to people in this country with a toast, I didn't see any sign of drunkenness I had no idea why anyone would be fined for that event."
Image source, Cabinet Office/PA WireBoris Johnson at the gathering on 14 January 2021
The committee shows a picture of the gathering on 14 January 2021, which shows several people, including Johnson in attendance, as well as drinks bottles on a table.
SNP MP Allan Dorans suggests it should have been "obvious" this event breached the rules as the police issued fines in relation to it.
Johnson says he disagrees with this "very strongly" and points out he did not get fined for attending.
He says the photo of the event was probably a screenshot from zoom as a large number of people took part remotely.
He adds that he was at the meeting only "briefly" to say thank you and farewell to "two talented young officials".
"Nothing I can see in that photo that strikes me as being either against the rules or the guidance," he adds.
We've just covered Boris Johnson saying no concerns were raised with him about the Downing Street garden party in May 2020.
It's important to note that in evidence published this morning, Cain said he raised concerns about the gathering with Dominic Cummings, Johnson's chief adviser at the time, saying Cummings agreed it "should not take place" and pledged to "raise the issue with Martin and the prime minister".
In his written evidence, Cain wrote that Cummings later confirmed that he'd informed the PM but they had argued about other issues and "he was clearly very frustrated".
Cain says he does not recall if he "personally had a conversation with the PM" about the party.
However he says it would have been "highly unusual" for him not to have raised a potentially serious communications risk with the PM directly.
Ione Wells
Political correspondent, reporting from the hearing
We knew Boris Johnson was going to hammer the point that it wouldn’t have been "obvious" to him that events were against the rules.
But what’s a little more surprising is how strongly he is disputing the idea that these gatherings were "not essential".
The committee are keeping pretty straight-faced, but I’ve detected a few raised eyebrows at these comments.
Johnson seems more confident arguing that he might not have realised it was against the rules. He seems on shakier ground trying to convince the MPs that these events were absolutely essential for work.
Chairwoman Harriet Harman says the committee will now ask about a leaving gathering for two officials in No 10 on 14 January 2021.
They will also focus on a Christmas gathering on 18 December 2020.
Image source, Cabinet Office/PA WireBoris Johnson at a leaving gathering for two officials on 14 January 2021
Johnson is being directed by Yvonne Fovague to the testimony of his former adviser Lee Cain, who says it was "clear it was a purely social function".
Asked if he shares this view, Johnson says he does not and that Cain did not say this as a time.
Pressed on whether he would have advised people to have a "large social gathering" at the time, Johnson disputes the idea it wasn't necessary and says he doesn't know why people were fined for being there.
He then insists it was not a "purely social gathering" and then angrily suggests anyone claiming they partied through lockdown "simply don't know what they are talking about".
When it is put to him if he thought exceptions applied to No 10 which didn't apply to workplaces like hospitals and care homes also operating in stressful and difficult circumstances, Johnson says "of course not" and says that's why they had mitigations in place to follow the guidance.