The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police confirmed on Tuesday that Scotland Yard was now investigating a number of alleged parties in Downing Street and Whitehall. 

Separate to the Sue Gray inquiry, these relate to potential criminal breaches of the Covid-19 regulations.

Here are her comments in full

We police without fear or favour. 

We police impartially, we police in an operationally independent manner. 

I myself have, as you know, investigated more politically-charged investigations and investigations involving members of the Government, members of the Civil Service and other elected officials, many more than any other senior police officer, I would suggest. 

And I’ve always done that and will always do that, as I say, impartially.

I absolutely understand that there is deep public concern about the allegations that have been in the media over the last several weeks. 

I completely understand that.

The vast majority of people have acted responsibly during the pandemic. 

Many, many people including many Londoners, and indeed my colleagues have made huge sacrifices and they’ve suffered considerable loss during the pandemic. 

And as you know, also, throughout the pandemic, my officers and my staff have kept going. 

They put themselves in harm’s way to tackle crime, to tackle violence and to do their bit to help our city in the health crisis. 

I would like to just quickly explain our general approach before returning very specifically to the matters relating to Downing Street. 

We have, throughout the pandemic, adopted, as you know, the approach of the four Es – invented in London and adopted nationally. 

We engaged with people at the time we explained the restrictions. 

We encourage people to adhere to them. 

And as a last resort, but only as a last resort, we moved to enforcement. 

In general, we have not normally investigated breaches of the regulations when they have been reported long after they’re said to have been taken place. 

It was never a blanket rule, but it was our guidelines that in general we wouldn’t. 

And we’ve said that publicly on many occasions. 

Throughout the pandemic, our focus has been on what we could do to benefit public health. 

We policed by consent and people need to see see that what we’re doing has a purpose, hence the four Es approach. 

And of course we did issue tickets, and we did enforce with some really flagrant breaches, but most people as you all well know, responded very well to our engagement and change their behaviour. 

We do have finite resources, and even more so during the worst periods of the pandemic when our officers fellow as well as other people. 

And our view was – and is – that it would not normally be a proportionate use of officers time to spend their time bearing in mind the nature of the offences after the fact investigating what could have been thousands of complaints. 

These are summary only offences. 

The people who commit them get a fixed penalty notice.

 I think in general, the public would understand that we need to focus on violent crime and terrorism and other priorities as well, of course, as doing our bit during the pandemic. 

But recognising that there might be some occasions where we would investigate retrospectively, we generated some guidelines, only guidelines, but guidelines that we have stuck to.

And you will be aware that we have, on occasion, investigated retrospectively.

Some of my own officers, a few, have received penalty notices when we heard after the fact that they had breached the guidelines. 

One or two high profile people also, when it was plain that they had admitted and there was good evidence, they also after the fact and a few weeks after the fact received penalty notices. 

And the occasions on which we have done that have been where we were looking at something which appeared to be the most serious and flagrant type of breach

And where four factors came into play. I’ll add a fourth, 

Firstly, there has to be some kind of evidence not just somebody saying something has to be some sort of start point, some sort of evidence. 

But my three factors were and there was evidence that those involved knew or ought to have known that what they were doing was an offence.

Where not investigating would significantly undermine the legitimacy of the law and where there was little ambiguity around the absence of any reasonable defence. 

So in those cases where those criteria were met, the guidelines suggested that we should potentially investigate further and end up giving people tickets. 

We have a long-established and effective working relationship with the Cabinet Office, who have an investigative capability. 

And as you well know, they have been carrying out an investigation over the last few weeks.

And what I can tell you this morning is that as a result, firstly, of the information provided by the Cabinet Office inquiry team, and secondly, my office’s own assessment, I can confirm that the Met is now investigating a number of events that took place at Downing Street and Whitehall in the last two years in relation to potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations. 

My officers have assessed several other events that appear to have taken place at Downing Street and Whitehall.

On the available information, these other events are assessed as not reaching the threshold for criminal investigation.

Throughout the pandemic the Met has sought to take, as I have said, a proportionate approach I should stress that the fact that we are now investigating does not of course mean that fixed penalty notices will necessarily be issued in every instance and to every person involved. 

We will not be giving a running commentary on our current investigations, but I can assure you that we will give updates at significant points as we would generally do.