David Jones is asking the questions again.
Q: Will the cost of the refurbishment of the PM’s flat be paid for by private donations?
Case says there are offices in Downing Street and residences.
The Cabinet Office pays for the refurbishment of offices.
For decades there has been an allowance of up to £30,000 a year to allow PMs to refurbish the residences. Any cost above that is paid for by the PM personally.
He says there has been talk of setting up a trust to fund this. Chequers and Dorneywood are run by trusts. And the White House has a trust.
Lord Brownlow agreed to head up a putative trust. And works was done on identifying potential trustees, Case says.
Case says he became aware of this this year. “This is a genuinely complicated legal, constitutional, propriety issue,†he says.
A charitable trust would not be able to pay for the private areas of Downing Street, he says.
Q: So are any private donations being used?
Case says all of this will be declared in the usual way.
Q: Are you aware of any donations being used.
Case says the PM has asked him to conduct a review.
Jones interrupts. He says he wants to know if Case is aware of any private donations being used.
Case says the PM has asked him to conduct a review, and share the details with the committee.
Q: How long would that take?
A matter of weeks, says Case.
Jones asks his question again.
Case says he does not have all the facts at his disposal, which is why he is conducting a review.
- Cabinet secretary does not deny claims that private donors have helped pay for PM’s flat refurbishment. In a written statement last week Lord True, a Cabinet Office minister, said that costs for the refurbishment had been “met by the prime minister personallyâ€. But there have been reports that the bill was first paid by a donor, and the government has not said whether Johnson ‘met the costs’ by repaying the donor, or whether he himself has had a loan to help him cover this cost. Case’s comments suggests a donor has been involved.
