Downing Street has denied Boris Johnson is holding Parliament in “contempt” after it confirmed the Prime Minister would not be attending a crunch debate on sleaze in the Commons.
MPs had secured an emergency debate on various allegations of “sleaze and corruption” aimed at the Conservatives, but Mr Johnson will not be in attendance.
No10 confirmed on Monday that the Prime Minister will be at a “long-standing” visit to an NHS Trust in Northumberland, meaning it will not be possible for him to face the three-hour grilling in the Commons.
The Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab will also not be attending the debate, Downing Street said, meaning the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Steve Barclay will be fielding questions from MPs.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told journalists: “The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is the right person to take questions because his department leads on this area and will be able to give a full response.
“The Prime Minister is at a long-standing commitment visiting an NHS Trust that is doing excellent work in the North East.”
Asked whether Mr Johnson was being “contemptuous of Parliament” by not showing up to the debate, his spokesman replied: “No.”
The Prime Minister later refused to apologise to both the public and his own MPs for his handling of the Owen Paterson debacle.
Asked whether he would say sorry during a visit to a hospital in Hexham, he replied: “What we’ve got to make sure is that we take all this very, very seriously and that we get it right.
“There’s a debate today, unfortunately I can’t be there because I had a long-standing engagement up here.”
The PM 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 said: “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.”
He said he hoped there would be “cross-party agreement on a way forward, including an appeals process”.
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