Boris Johnson asked me to overrule peer vetting, says Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak has accused Boris Johnson of asking him to “overrule” a panel tasked with vetting his appointments to the House of Lords.

The House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) has confirmed it rejected eight of the former prime minister’s nominations.

Mr Sunak said Mr Johnson asked him to overrule them, or “make promises to people”.

But he said he refused, adding it was “something I wasn’t prepared to do”.

“I wasn’t prepared to do that, I didn’t think that was right. And if people don’t like that, then tough,” he told a tech conference in London.

The intervention marks a new point in an escalating war of words over Mr Johnson’s controversial resignation honours list.

Mr Johnson announced he was quitting Parliament on Friday over a report from the Privileges Committee, who were investigating whether he had misled MPs about lockdown parties in Downing Street.

It came hours after Downing Street published his resignation honours list without the names of key supporters, including Nadine Dorries, Sir Alok Sharma and Nigel Adams.

All three had been expecting to be appointed to the House of Lords.

Competing claims have now surfaced about how and why the names were removed.