Boris Johnson has refused to apologise after his attempt to overhaul Westminster’s disciplinary procedures collapsed in disastrous fashion last week.

The PM was asked about the saga during a visit to a hospital in Hexham as accusations of ‘sleaze’ threatened to engulf his administration.

Labour has called for an apology in the wake of the row, which started when then Tory MP Owen Paterson was handed a suspension from the Commons.

Mr Johnson and his ministers were accused of trying to rewrite the rule book to spare Mr Paterson – a former Cabinet minister – who was found to have repeatedly lobbied ministers and officials on behalf of two companies he worked for as a paid consultant.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a webbrowser thatsupports HTML5video

The attempt failed after opposition parties refused to co-operate, while Mr Paterson announced he was quitting as MP for North Shropshire blaming the ‘cruel world of politics’.

The Prime Minister dodged the opportunity to say sorry when speaking to broadcasters earlier.

‘What we’ve got to make sure is that we take all this very, very seriously and that we get it right,’ he said instead.

Mr Johnson was speaking ahead of a three-hour emergency debate getting under way in the House of Commons as MPs consider how the system could be reformed.

Mr Paterson – who has protested his innocence throughout and linked to the row to his wife’s suicide – has said MPs should be offered a more robust system of appeals if they are found to have broken the rules.

The PM said he couldn’t be at the debate because of his ‘long-standing commitment’ to visit the hospital after being accused of ‘running scared’ by Labour.

He said opposition parties wanted to focus on ‘a particular case, a particular MP who suffered a serious personal tragedy, and who’s now resigned’.

He added: ‘I don’t think there’s much more to be said about that particular case, I really don’t, but what we do need to do is look also at the process, and that is what we were trying to do last week.’

The PM said the future of the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone was ‘a matter for the Speaker’ while he insisted there has been ‘no discussion’ on giving Mr Paterson a peerage.

Asked if MPs should be banned from taking second jobs, Mr Johnson said: ‘All those kind of things are issues that the Speaker’s panel – whatever he is going to set up – will have a look at.’

He added: ‘If there is anything positive to come out of the whole thing, it is that, as far as I can make out, the Speaker is determined to try to move us all forward with a system whereby we have a cross-party approach, which is what we were trying achieve last week.’

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will respond on behalf of his party in the debate after finishing his period of Covid self-isolation.

He said: ‘Boris Johnson does not have the decency either to defend or apologise for his actions.

‘Rather than repairing the damage he has done, the Prime Minister is running scared.

‘When required to lead, he has chosen to hide. His concern, as always, is self-preservation, not the national interest.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Source: Read Full Article