THE SNP have been granted an urgent question in the House of Commons today as Tory ministers are set to face MPs.
Alison Thewliss MP has tabled a question asking Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove to update the House on the ministerial code amid the serious allegations of special access, impropriety and possible illegality being levelled at the Tory government.
The SNP have called for a full independent public inquiry into why Tory donors and friends have been handed lucrative contracts, special access, tax breaks and peerages by the Tory government.
My SNP colleague @alisonthewliss has been granted an Urgent Question in the House of Commons from 3.35pm amid the growing Tory sleaze scandal.
— Ian Blackford (@Ianblackford_MP) April 26, 2021
Boris Johnson cannot sweep this one under the carpet. There must be an independent public inquiry to hold those responsible to account.
Thewliss, the SNP's shadow chancellor at Westminster, said: "As Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove (below) must come to the despatch box and answer questions on the growing Tory sleaze scandal engulfing Westminster.
"There are some very serious allegations of special access, impropriety and possible illegality being levelled at the highest levels of the Tory government - including the Prime Minister.
"The public have a right to know why Tory donors and friends have been handed lucrative contracts, special access, tax breaks and peerages. It absolutely stinks of Tory sleaze and cronyism at its most rotten.
"A full independent public inquiry is the only way to provide the transparency and accountability required. Those responsible must be held to account."
READ MORE: Boris Johnson to be quizzed by HMRC over Downing Street flat refurbishment
It comes after Labour pushed for a senior minister to face questions over the growing war of words between Johnson and his former adviser Dominic Cummings.
Last week, Cummings published a blog describing a plan by Johnson to get Tory donors to secretly fund the refurbishment of the Prime Minister's Downing Street flat as “unethical, foolish, possibly illegal”.
The Government has said that Johnson paid for the revamp "out of his own pocket", but Labour insists he must explain how he obtained the money.
The party's shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Rachel Reeves, has now gone a step further and written to Gove calling on the Government to publish all communications between ministers and business contacts with links to Covid contracts.
My full letter to Michael Gove. pic.twitter.com/pb6moUPjlz
— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) April 26, 2021
Reeves said: “Under the increasing spread of Tory sleaze, knowing how exposed some of our frontline staff were during the height of the pandemic without proper PPE, but also that Tory friends and donors were being awarded £2 billion worth of contracts creates increasingly serious questions for government.
“The government have long rejected Labour’s call for basic transparency by publishing the VIP fast lane, but this cannot go on given new revelations of corruption risk, and of companies without proper certification being allowed to jump the queue.
“As we are still missing an independent advisor on ministerial standards, and a Register of Ministers’ Interests, the Government must require ministers to publish openly and with full transparency, communications between them and those businesses who have won contracts since the pandemic begun and emergency procurement was introduced.
“Otherwise it’s increasingly clear that it is one set of rules for Ministers and their close friends, and another for everyone else.”
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