No10 today insisted Tory cash isn’t being used to fund the refurb of Boris Johnson ’s flat - without saying whether it has in the past.
In a statement issued this evening, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “Any costs of wider refurbishment this year beyond those provided for by the annual allowance have been met by the Prime Minister personally.”
They added: “Conservative Party funds are not being used for this.”
But the present-tense statement left questions raging over how the PM initially paid for the reportedly lavish makeover.
The Tories have declined to deny a suggestion, first reported by ITV, that the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) paid the Cabinet Office to cover initial costs of the refurbishments, with Mr Johnson now repaying the party.
Any loans of this kind would normally be declared on the Register of Ministers’ Interests - which was last published in July.
This afternoon, Mr Johnson's spokesman said that list would not be updated until after No 10 appoints a new independent adviser on ministerial standards.
Sir Alex Allan resigned from the role in November in response to Mr Johnson standing by Home Secretary Priti Patel despite an investigation finding her conduct "amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying".
"The declaration of interests that will be made available once we've appointed the replacement for Alex Allan, that work is in train," the spokesman said.
"One of the first things that person will then do is then look at the ministerial interests and then make sure they can be published in the normal manner."
Labour has called on the Electoral Commission to request that No 10 hands over the estimates, invoices and receipts for all payment relevant to the investigation.
In a letter to the Commission chief Bob Posner, lawyers for Labour cited allegations by Dominic Cummings that Mr Johnson had planned to ask Tory donors to fund the renovation.
Mr Cummings made the claims in a lengthy blog post on Friday, where he said: "The PM stopped speaking to me about this matter in 2020 as I told him I thought his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended."
On Sunday, Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace both refused to say whether the bill was initially settled by the Tory Party, or one of its donors.
Both ministers faced questions over reports that Mr Johnson used a £58,000 donation from Tory peer Lord Brownlow towards the cost of the work, which should have been declared as a loan under party funding rules.
Last week, the Daily Mail published details of an email from Lord Brownlow in which he said he was making a £58,000 donation to the party "to cover the payments the party has already made on behalf of the soon-to-be-formed 'Downing Street Trust"'.
No such trust has been formed to date.
The Electoral Commission, which first raised the issue with the Conservatives more than a month ago, confirmed at the weekend it was still looking into whether any of the sums relating to the work on the flat should have been declared.
