Tory minister Brandon Lewis compares partygate fines to parking tickets

Government minister Brandon Lewis has compared the fixed-penalty notices issued to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for breaching public health restrictions during the pandemic to parking or speeding fines handed to motorists.

The Prime Minister will appear in front of MPs this afternoon for the first time since he was fined by the police. He is expected to give a “full-throated apology” but also call for a renewed focus on the war in Ukraine and discuss Britain’s energy security.

Ahead of Johnson’s statement, the Northern Ireland Secretary told Sky News: “We do see consistently, whether it’s through parking fines, whether it’s through speeding fines, ministers of both parties over the years have been in that position.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor were among those issued with fixed-penalty notices last week as a result of the Met investigation into illegal social gatherings held in Downing Street and Whitehall during the pandemic.

A June 19th party, for which the fines were issued, was reportedly a birthday event held for Johnson, organised by his wife with the Chancellor in attendance. Conor Burns previously argued that Johnson had been “ambushed with a cake”.

“We’ve had Prime Ministers in the past have penalty notices, from what I can see, and also frontbench ministers,” Lewis added this morning.

“There was a parking notice that Tony Blair had once. We’ve seen frontbench Labour ministers, and let’s be frank, government ministers as well.”

Pressed on whether Blair receiving a parking fine was the same as Johnson breaking Covid rules, he said: “You’ve asked me, can someone who sets the laws and the rules, can they also be someone who breaks the rules? That clearly has happened with a number of ministers over the years.”

Johnson told MPs following the emergence of the initial allegations that “the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times”. Lewis argued this morning that the Prime Minister said “what he believed to be the truth”.

After a video was released showing No 10 staff laughing about the December 18th event, Johnson said he had been “repeatedly assured” that “there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”. Later that day, he said he was “sure that whatever happened, the guidance was followed”.

Asked whether the Prime Minister now acknowledges that he broke public health restrictions, Lewis said: “In the sense that he has paid a fine that the police have decided to issue because the rules were broken, but that doesn’t mean that anything he said to parliament was inaccurate at the time.”