Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department received advice from the Director for Propriety and Ethics before commissioning the opinion relating to the Committee of Privileges' inquiry into the Rt. hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

As the Privileges Committee inquiry relates to the conduct of the now former Prime Minister making statements at the despatch box on behalf of the Government as a Minister, the Government is supporting his response to Parliament, as with any Minister, and has instructed legal support.

It has been the practice of successive administrations to preserve a space for the provision of advice from senior officials, which necessarily requires discretion about whether or not that advice has been sought or received in respect of particular matters.