What does the ministerial code actually say?

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, says Boris Johnson must resign if he broke the code. John Rentoul on what that might mean

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, said the prime minister must resign if... (PA)

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, was trapped yesterday by his demand that Nicola Sturgeon should resign as first minister if she is found to have broken the Scottish government’s ministerial code. Did this mean he thought Boris Johnson should resign if he broke the UK ministerial code? “Of course,” Ross told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.

So how likely is it that the prime minister will be found to have broken the code? That depends on two things: what the code says and who decides whether Johnson has contravened it.

Two parts of the code might be relevant. Paragraph 1.3c says: “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister.”

This is the paragraph quoted by Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions last week when he asked about the claim that Johnson said he would rather have “bodies pile high” than implement another lockdown: “Did he make those remarks or remarks to that effect?” Johnson said “No”, so if it can be shown that he did say it – “or remarks to that effect” – he would appear to be in breach of the code. That is a big “if”, however, and it might still come up against the problem of proving that Johnson had misled MPs “knowingly”.

The other part of the code that Johnson is accused of breaking is 1.3f: “Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests.” It has been suggested that if a Conservative donor such as Lord Brownlow paid for part of the renovation of the prime minister’s Downing Street flat, and even if Johnson repaid the money, Johnson ought to declare it so that any potential conflict of interest could be avoided. The code goes on to say, in paragraph 7.5: “A statement covering relevant ministers’ interests will be published twice yearly.”

That paragraph was not observed last year, when only one statement was published, which means a new statement is overdue. For months, journalists have been told that it will be published “shortly”; the government now says it will be published when Lord Geidt, appointed last week as the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial interests, completes his “review” of the financing of the refurbishment of No 11.

So the prime minister has already broken the ministerial code, by failing to publish frequent enough updates on ministerial interests, including his own. Strictly, therefore, Douglas Ross must expect Johnson to resign forthwith. Which brings us to the question of who decides whether the code has been broken and if so what the consequences should be. The short answer is: the prime minister.

Johnson can ask Lord Geidt to establish the facts and to make a recommendation, but he doesn’t have to accept them. That was why Sir Alex Allan, Lord Geidt’s predecessor, resigned: he found that Priti Patel, the home secretary, was guilty of bullying – and hence was in breach of the code – but Johnson refused to accept his finding. Lord Geidt might be in a slightly stronger moral position, in that it would be even more embarrassing for the prime minister to lose two independent advisers in quick succession, although Johnson’s capacity for absorbing embarrassment does seem to be considerable.

But the bottom line is that, if Johnson concludes that he did break the code, he would have to offer his resignation to himself, at which point he might tell himself in the privacy of his bathroom mirror that, on balance, he doesn’t think that he has done anything that terrible.