Yvette Cooper used an urgent question in the House of Commons to ask whether Alexander Lebedev wanted to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a weekend party in April 2018.
A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that he had met Lebedev, a former KGB agent, the shadow home secretary told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son .
“There are also rumors that Alexander Lebedev tried to arrange a phone call from the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, is that true? Did that phone call happen?” Cooper asked from the dispatch box.
In response, Vicky Ford, a junior minister at the Foreign Office, said: “I take matters of national security seriously,” but she failed to address the substance of the question. She said ministers had introduced “world-leading sanctions packages” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Last month, the Tortoise website reported that Lebedev had tried to set up an unmonitored line between Johnson, then the foreign minister, and Lavrov to discuss the Salisbury poisonings, which had occurred almost two months earlier. But the call never went through because Johnson overslept.
On Wednesday, Johnson confirmed to MPs that he had traveled to Perugia for a weekend party without his bodyguard, where he admitted he “certainly met” Lebedev, a former colonel in the Soviet KGB. Johnson said he reported the meeting to officials upon his return.
Boris Johnson insisted on meeting ex-KGB agent while foreign secretary – video
Cooper asked Ford a number of questions about the meeting with Lebedev, also a former owner of the Independent and Evening Standard. “Did the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Security Service know about this meeting in advance? Was a detailed record made after the meeting event? Because there are rumors that the foreign minister was too drunk to remember correctly. Is it true?” she asked.
The Labor MP said the opposition had been asking questions about the meeting for months and accused ministers of withholding information. “It’s bad enough covering up parties and breaking the law, but covering up national security is an absolute disgrace,” Cooper told MPs.
In an initial statement, Ford said that while Johnson had confirmed the fact of Wednesday’s meeting, she had “no information about the content of any discussions that may or may not have been with Mr. Lebedev.”
The minister was then pressed by Labor backbencher Chris Bryant on why there was no record of the meeting with Lebedev in the Foreign Office’s transparency documents, only a reference to an “overnight stay” with his son Yevgeny Lebedev on 28-29 April 2018.
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Bryant said that suggests Johnson didn’t actually make a statement about the meeting with Alexander Lebedev, despite what he told lawmakers Wednesday, because it would have appeared on the record.
In response, Ford was forced to change her answer. She initially said: “It is my understanding that the Prime Minister has confirmed that he met with Mr Lebedev without officials present and that he subsequently reported these meetings to officials.”
But a few moments later, the junior minister wasn’t so sure. “I’ve just been handed a note that apparently the Prime Minister says he thinks he mentioned that meeting to officials,” prompting jeers from the Labor backbenchers. “I’m reporting what I was told,” she said.
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