Boris Johnson: What is the Privileges Committee and who are its members?

A report from MPs about whether Boris Johnson misled Parliament over parties at 10 Downing Street is expected to be published on Wednesday.

Committees are bodies in Parliament which examine issues such as laws or policies in more detail.

Its duties include looking at cases where MPs are accused of breaking rules.

The committee has "privileges" in its name because it deals with certain privileges that MPs enjoy. These include immunity from legal prosecution for anything said in Parliament, to allow MPs to speak freely.

The committee was established in its current form in 2013 in the House of Commons. Similar work was previously done by a larger committee called the Standards and Privileges Committee.

Boris Johnson accused members of the committee of having a bias against him, saying: "Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts."

However, four of the seven members of the committee are Conservative MPs (Sir Bernard Jenkin, Sir Charles Walker, Andy Carter and Alberto Costa).

Two members are Labour MPs (Harriet Harman and Yvonne Fovargue) and one represents the SNP (Allan Dorans).

The rules state the chair has to be a member of the official opposition - ie from the Labour party. Harriet Harman was unanimously elected to the post in June 2022.

The committee can order any MP to appear before it, and require them to hand over documents or other evidence.

But most of the sanctions it can recommend must be approved by a vote in the House of Commons.

Parties have traditionally not told their MPs which way to vote on such matters, although there have been exceptions to this.

The committee can advise that an MP be suspended from the Commons. A suspension of more than two weeks could trigger something called a recall petition, which in turn could lead to a by-election.

In the most extreme cases it can recommend an MP be expelled.

The committee can also require an MP to apologise, or recommend that the House of Commons vote to rebuke them. It can call for an MP's salary to be withheld, or for public money to be repaid.

As Mr Johnson has already resigned as an MP, it is not yet clear what sanctions the Committee will recommend.

At the moment, the report will still need to be approved by a vote of MPs, but this has not yet been confirmed.

If a vote does go ahead, there are suggestions opposition MPs may try introduce their own sanctions.

The phrase generally refers to a group acting without legal authority which hastily reaches a verdict without considering evidence.

At his evidence hearing, Mr Johnson criticised committee chair Harriet Harman for having "said some things about this matter before reading the evidence".

He was referring to comments she made on Twitter in April 2022, when she said that if Boris Johnson and then Chancellor Rishi Sunak accepted a fine for a lockdown breaking party, "they are also admitting that they misled the House of Commons".

Ms Harman replaced the previous chair Sir Chris Bryant, who decided he should not lead the investigation because of his previous criticism of Mr Johnson's rule-breaking.

No - it can also decide if non-MPs have been in contempt of Parliament.

In 2019, the Privileges Committee examined the refusal of Boris Johnson's former adviser Dominic Cummings to give evidence to another parliamentary committee.