A minister denied that Boris Johnson’s actions amounted to corruption today after controversial messages with a Tory donor were revealed.
Johnson came under fire after texts to a Conservative peer showed he sought funds for his flat refurbishment while promising to consider plans for an event referred to as the “great exhibition”.
The bombshell messages left small business minister Paul Scully facing questions this morning over the prime minister’s conduct.
Asked on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme if it was potentially corruption, he replied: “No, I disagree. The prime minister will get approaches from people all the time and it was absolutely right that all this talk about great exhibition and the like was tackled with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS] where it belongs.”
When it was put to him that the messages looked like “linkage”, he replied: “It was passed on to [DCMS] where it belongs and it wasn’t progressed. So I think that’s really clear what’s happened there.”
Presenter Martha Kearney asked him: “Given the prime minister has to remain above any kind of suspicion, why was he linking the idea of asking for money for his flat with a possible exhibition?”
Scully dismissed this and repeated that it was passed on to DCMS. The minister said he did not know if it was the prime minister or Lord Brownlow who referred it to the DCMS, adding: “Either way it was pushed off to the right channels and it was dealt with in the correct way.”
Published Thursday afternoon, the messages with Brownlow show Johnson described parts of his Downing Street flat a “tip” and asked for “approvals” so designer Lulu Lytle could “get on with it” in November 2020.
He signed off the message saying: “Ps am on the great exhibition plan Will revert.”
Brownlow replied: “Of course, get Lulu to call me and we’ll get it sorted ASAP! Thanks for thinking about GE2.”
Plans for a “Great Exhibition 2.0” were discussed by Brownlow and the then culture secretary Oliver Dowden just weeks after the exchanges, according to official records.
Labour said the “cosy text messages” between Johnson and Brownlow raised questions about “cash for access”, as the party confirmed it has asked Commons Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone to investigate.
Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “They matter immensely because Lord Brownlow appears to have access to the prime minister because he was paying for the flat renovations.
“If that is the case, that is corruption. And what we’re seeing here is a case of potentially cash for access where Lord Brownlow was given access to ministers to try and influence them over decisions of spending taxpayers’ money – that is why this matters so immensely.”
A spokesperson for the PM yesterday said the exhibition was an “idea that wasn’t taken forward”.
He said Festival UK – formerly known as the Festival of Brexit – would be going ahead in 2022 but could not explain the difference between that event and the great exhibition plan.
The correspondence between Brownlow and Johnson was revealed after being withheld from an inquiry into the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat.
Johnson’s ethics adviser Lord Geidt said it was “plainly unsatisfactory” that he had not been shown the messages.
Johnson claimed he failed to disclose the messages to Geidt because he changed his phone number in April, after it emerged that it was publicly available.
He offered Geidt a “humble and sincere apology” but stressed that “security issues faced at the time” meant he did not have access to the messages.
The crossbench peer, who was the Queen’s private secretary for 10 years, led a probe into the funding of the lavish makeover after newspapers published a string of exposes.