Boris Johnson has returned his questionnaire answers about allegations of lockdown-busting parties to the police, Downing Street has confirmed.
As part of the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into alleged gatherings in Downing Street, termed Operation Hillman, a questionnaire was issued to more than 50 people to gauge the level and extent of Covid rule-breaking. Both the PM and his wife Carrie Johnson were recipients.
The Met said the email must be responded to ‘within seven days’ and that the questionnaire should shine a light on a ‘recipient’s participation in an event’. Johnson had until 22:00 GMT on Friday to answer the survey. Had the PM refused to reply, he would have faced a fine.
Downing Street has previously said the PM’s responses will not be made public. But he is expected to argue he broke no rules because he used No 10 as a workspace, given that it is both his home and an office shared with hundreds of others.
Operation Hillman is currently examining twelve gatherings on eight dates – some of which the PM is understood to have attended. Any decision is not expected for weeks.
The investigation was launched in late January and it was requested that the internal inquiry led by civil servant Sue Gray passed information to the force.
Detectives investigating the parties have been handed more than 500 documents and 300 images gathered as part of Ms Gray’s inquiry. An initial version of Sue Gray’s report was published at the end of January which concluded: “At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of Government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time”.
Former Conservative party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, told the i newspaper last week that the PM would find it difficult to hold onto his post if the force fine him: “I think it would be very tough for anyone to remain after that. If you’ve set the laws, and you break them and the police decide you have broken them… and then there’s the unredacted (Sue Gray) report – the two things will come together”.
This comes as a union representing civil servants revealed it had pushed for officials involved in the investigation to be able to consult notes on the evidence they gave to the Sue Gray inquiry to help inform their Met Q&A.
Dave Penman, the general secretary of the Association of First Division Civil Servants (FDA), tweeted: “To be clear, this has been agreed after a request from us, the FDA, their trade union … They will only be able to see what they said in their own interview, to assist them in completing the questionnaires from the Metropolitan police, who have raised no objection to this”.
Ms Gray admitted that it was not “standard practice in internal investigations such as this” to share notes with interviewees, but said in a letter seen by the Guardian that she had decided “as an exceptional measure” that they would get “limited access”.
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