Rishi Sunak: “Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do”
By Joshua Nevett & Paul Seddon
BBC Politics
A war of words has erupted between Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson over the former prime minister’s attempt to give peerages to several close allies.
Mr Sunak accused his former boss of asking him to “overrule” the vetting advice on his House of Lords nominations.
But in a fiery statement, Mr Johnson accused Mr Sunak of “talking rubbish”.
The House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) said it rejected eight of Mr Johnson’s nominations.
There has been no confirmation of who the nominees were, and why they were not included on Mr Johnson’s controversial resignation honours list.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said HOLAC did not support the peerage nominations of the MPs put forward by Mr Johnson.
The honours list was published by Mr Sunak’s government on Friday, without the names of some of Mr Johnson’s key supporters, including Conservative MPs Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams.
A few hours after his honours list was released, Mr Johnson announced he was standing down as an MP over an investigation into whether he had misled Parliament about lockdown parties.
Competing claims have now surfaced about how and why the names would not have appeared on the list.
Mr Adams and Ms Dorries have both announced they would immediately standing down as MPs, triggering by-elections to replace them.
Earlier, the row over the nominations spilled into a public spat between Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak.
Speaking at a tech conference in London earlier, Mr Sunak claimed Mr Johnson had asked him to do “something I wasn’t prepared to do” on peerage nominations.
“I didn’t think that was right. And if people don’t like that, then tough,” Mr Sunak said.
A few hours later, Mr Johnson claimed it “was not necessary to overrule HOLAC – but simply to ask them to renew their vetting, which was a mere formality”.
Mr Sunak’s comments are the first made publicly about the dispute over peerages, and marks a heightening of tensions between the two.
Their relationship has been an uneasy one after Mr Sunak quit as chancellor in Mr Johnson’s government, setting off a wave of resignations that brought down his premiership.
The process of vetting Mr Johnson’s nominees for peerages appears to be the one of the points of disagreement between the former allies.
There has been speculation in media reports about what would happen if a serving MP was nominated for a peerage, and whether they could remain in the House of Commons until the next general election, before taking up their seats in the Lords.
But HOLAC says its vetting checks expire after six months, meaning its advice on nominations is only valid for that period.
In his statement, Mr Johnson appears to be suggesting the vetting checks for his nominees could be carried out again.
Vetting process
In an interview with TalkTV, Ms Dorries claimed Downing Street had not been “telling the truth” about her nomination for a peerage.
Ms Dorries said Mr Johnson had told her in autumn last year she had been put on his resignation honours list.
The former culture secretary said she had been vetted for the peerage, but because six months had passed, her checks had expired.
She said Mr Sunak and Mr Johnson had a meeting last week to discuss his honours list.
Ms Dorries accused the prime minister of using “weasel words” to give Mr Johnson the impression Mr Sunak would ask HOLAC to restart the vetting process.
She said Mr Sunak used those words because he “knew a situation had been engineered” in which her name would not be on the list.
When asked who she believed had stopped her from entering the House of Lords, she replied: “The prime minister – Rishi Sunak.”
Following her interview, the Cabinet Office said it would be “unprecedented for a sitting prime minister to invite HOLAC to reconsider the vetting of individual nominees on a former prime minister’s resignation list.
“It is not therefore a formality.”
Nominations convention
As a departing prime minister, Mr Johnson has the right to nominate people for seats in the House of Lords, and for other honours such as knighthoods.
By convention, current prime ministers pass on the list of nominees to HOLAC, which can recommend their names do not go forward after a vetting process.
HOLAC advises prime ministers on the suitability of candidates for peerages and usually, they accept its recommendations on appointments, whatever the outcome.
But Mr Johnson broke with this convention in 2020, when he nominated businessman Peter Cruddas for a peerage, despite his rejection by HOLAC.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the vetting commission said it had rejected eight of Mr Johnson’s nominations, but declined to name them or say why, adding it “does not comment on individuals”.
Downing Street has insisted that Mr Sunak passed on Mr Johnson’s list of nominations unaltered. It says it also accepted HOLAC’s full approved list and passed it to the King.
But on Monday, a source describing themselves as an ally of Mr Johnson accused the prime minister of “secretly” blocking peerages for “Nadine and others”.
“He refused to ask for them to undergo basic checks that could have taken only a few weeks or even days,” the source added.
“That is how he kept them off the list – without telling Boris Johnson.”
