LORD Geidt has resigned as the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests, a statement on the Government’s website says.
A statement from Lord Geidt read: “With regret, I feel that it is right that I am resigning from my post as independent adviser on ministers’ interests.”
Just on Tuesday the adviser refused to deny he considered resigning over the Prime Minister’s response to being fined for attending a party in Downing Street during lockdown.
Lord Geidt told the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee he had felt “frustration” and that the option of resignation was always “on the agenda”.
However, he said that he did not believe there was ever a point when he formed “a single direct proposition” in his own mind.
The Times reported that Lord Geidt threatened to quit his post following the publication last month of the Sue Gray report into lockdown violations in Whitehall unless Johnson issued a public explanation for his conduct.
In response the Prime Minister put out a letter to Lord Geidt saying he believed any breach of the Covid rules when he attended a gathering in the Cabinet room for his 56th birthday had been “unwitting”.
He said he had acted in “good faith” when he told Parliament that there had not been any parties and that he had since corrected the record.
Asked about the report that he threatened to quit, Lord Geidt acknowledged that “the commentariat” had picked up on his “frustration” at that time.
“I am glad that the Prime Minister was able to respond to my report and in doing so addressed aspects of the things about which I was clearly frustrated,” he told the committee.
“Resignation is one of the rather blunt but few tools available to the adviser. I am glad that my frustrations were addressed in the way that they were.”
Pressed by Labour MP John McDonnell if he had contemplated resignation, Lord Geidt said: “There are few instruments available to an independent adviser and (it is) important to consider what is going to work best in the interest, not of me, but preserving the integrity of the system and of the (Ministerial) Code in making it work in advising the Prime Minister on holding ministers – including a prime minister – publicly to account.
“I haven’t given you a direct answer but I don’t think there was ever a single, direct proposition in my own mind.”
McDonnell replied: “I am going to take that answer as at least it was on the agenda.”
Lord Geidt said: “We have mentioned before in evidence that it is always on the agenda as an available remedy to a particular problem.”
Geidt is the second person to resign as Johnson’s ethics adviser during his less than three years as Prime Minister.
Sir Alex Allan quit in 2020 after Johnson refused to accept his finding that Home Secretary Priti Patel had bullied civil servants.
