Boris Johnson broke Commons rules over late declaration of financial interest in property

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Boris Johnson has breached House of Commons rules by failing to declare a financial interest in a property within the required time limit, the Commons Committee on Standards has found.

According to the watchdog, the former foreign secretary failed to register his 20 per cent share of the Somerset property within the 28-day timetable of acquiring it last January.

It follows Mr Johnson’s previous apology to the committee just four months ago after breaching rules on declared earnings for his book royalties.

In a second damning report, the standards committee claimed the Conservative MP demonstrated “an over-casual attitude towards obeying the rules of the house”.

Now, the committee has instructed Mr Johnson to meet with the registrar of members’ financial interests in person to receive a full briefing on his obligations as a MP to register all relevant interests.

Any further breaches of the Commons rules, the report warned, may result in a “more serious sanction” for Mr Johnson.

The committee said in its report on the matter that Mr Johnson took “immediate action” to set the matter right and apologised to the commissioner.

But it added: “We conclude with concern that these two investigations by the commissioner in rapid succession demonstrate a pattern of behaviour by Mr Johnson.

“While there is no suggestion that he has at any time tried deliberately to conceal the extent of his interests, this latest breach reinforces the view which [was] expressed in our previous report, that he has displayed an ‘over-casual attitude towards obeying the rules of the house’.”

“We acknowledge Mr Johnson’s repeated apologies for these breaches of the rules, most recently in his letter to us dated 1 April 2019.

“We require that Mr Johnson should meet with the registrar of members’ financial interests in person to receive a full briefing from her about his obligations as a member to register all relevant interests in accordance with the rules.”