Rishi Sunak is to miss a vote on whether to impose sanctions on Boris Johnson over his Partygate denials because of other diary plans, Downing Street has signalled.
In a sign No 10 wants to defuse the blue-on-blue row over the former prime minister’s conduct as quickly as possible, Sunak’s spokesperson said he was not planning to attend parliament on Monday due to “commitments that he can’t move”.
The duties were said to include welcoming the prime minister of Sweden to Downing Street and a series of other meetings.
Monday evening’s vote will be the culmination of a 14-month inquiry by a cross-party group of MPs into Johnson’s Partygate denials, which found he committed five contempts of parliament.
As well as deliberately misleading the Commons, Johnson misled the privileges committee behind the investigation, the inquiry concluded. He was also found to have partially leaked its findings, been complicit in a campaign of abuse against its members and undermined parliament’s democratic processes.
MPs will have up to five-and-a-half hours to debate the report from 4.30pm on Monday. Commons sources suggested it was likely to take four hours, based on the number of MPs who wanted to speak.
At the end, a vote will be held on endorsing the findings, which recommended Johnson should be blocked from getting a pass for former MPs allowing him privileged access to parliament.
The sanction was proposed by the privileges committee because it was not able to enforce the 90-day suspension it was going to recommend, as Johnson quit as an MP last week.
No 10 would not say definitively whether Sunak would abstain on the vote, given it may go through uncontested – meaning there will not be a formal division and instead the report will go through “on the nod”.
“I don’t think we know yet whether there will be a vote on this issue,” said Sunak’s spokesperson. Asked whether the prime minister planned to attend the Commons if there was a vote, they said: “You’ve got his schedule for today, which doesn’t include attending parliament, but obviously we will see how the timings play out.”
Johnson’s supporters were said over the weekend to be planning to abstain on the vote as well.
The move was viewed as a sign of Johnson’s weak grip over the parliamentary party he once commanded, signalling his allies’ fears of demonstrating how few in number they were.
Several Tory MPs have indicated they will endorse the report. But the Brexiter backbencher William Cash wrote in an article for the Sunday Telegraph: “I shall vote against the motion that approves the committee on privileges’ report because I do not believe it serves parliament well.”
Though Downing Street and Johnson have sought to avoid holding a formal division whereby MPs must register their vote in the “aye” or “no” lobby, there were increasing signs that Labour would push for one. Multiple sources told the Guardian they were confident there would be such a vote, which would force each Tory MP to register their view on the matter.
