South Holland and the Deepings MP Sir John Hayes has not made decision on Monday’s Boris Johnson vote

South Holland and the Deepings MP Sir John Hayes has not yet made a decision on how he will vote when members are asked to give their verdict on a report into Boris Johnson’s behaviour.

MPs will be voting on Monday on whether to accept the findings of the privileges committee which investigated whether the former Prime Minister had misled parliament over allegations of parties being held in No 10 during lockdown.

The committee found that Mr Johnson had ‘committed repeated contempts of parliament’ and would have recommended that he be suspended for 90 days from parliament had he not resigned last week. They are also recommending that he not be granted a parliamentary pass.

Sir John told the Lincolnshire Free Press and Spalding Guardian this morning that he had not yet the read the report as he had been speaking in Newcastle last night – but will be looking at it over the weekend.

He said: “Clearly there are three questions: did he mislead parliament; did he do it deliberately; and whether the penalty is fair?

“My instinct is that if he misled parliament and did it without thinking he was then clearly that is one thing. If he had known what he was say was not right is another and that is the first thing to determine.

“I will be there on Monday. There will be three options (for, against or abstain) and I will weigh up all of those points."

Sir John said the ‘biggest deception’ of his time in Parliament had been the claims under Tony Blair’s Government that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ahead of the invasion.

Mr Johnson and his supporters have criticised the privileges committee and made claims of it being a ‘kangaroo court’.

Sir John said: “I have respect for the people that were committed to do that job and that is part of my consideration. Having said that I want to be clear I am very hesitant about a sanction that would effectively be as severe as they were proposing – a very long term suspension of the house which could have triggered a by-election.

“Whether he had been treated fairly and reasonably I would need to look at the facts before I make a decision about that.”

Sir John went onto say that he had ‘valued’ Mr Johnson for ‘getting Brexit done’, the general election result of 2019 and for his handling of the Covid pandemic.