Boris Johnson has said that he doesn’t “think there’s anything to see here” with regards to an investigation into the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat despite the Electoral Commission saying there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect an offence.
The prime minister has said he will comply with “whatever” the Commission wants after it launched a formal inquiry.
The probe will seek to establish who initially paid for the work and whether any donation was properly declared.
Investigators can demand documents and information, and could potentially seek a statutory interview with the prime minister as part of the process.
During a visit to a London school, Johnson told reporters: “We will comply with whatever they want, and I don’t think there is anything to see here, or worry about.”
He insisted that a newly-appointed ministerial standards adviser Lord Geidt will do an “outstanding job” in his separate review into whether any donations for the refurbishments in No 11 were properly declared.
Labour criticised the arrangement because the prime minister remains the “ultimate arbiter” of the code, meaning Johnson “effectively marks his own homework”.
Johnson argued, in a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life Lord Evans, that he “cannot and would not wish” to give up the power.
“That vital responsibility is quite properly mine alone and, as an elected politician, one for which I am ultimately accountable to the electorate,” he said.
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