Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the Covid restrictions imposed by the government might have been “too hard on people”.
The cabinet minister’s intervention came as Boris Johnson faced calls from Tory MPs to resign as prime minister after he admitted attending party in the No.10 garden during the first lockdown in May 2020.
Speaking in the Commons on Thursday, Rees-Mogg defended Johnson and said he had “apologised”.
“People were obeying the rules, and that these rules were very hard for people to obey,” he said.
“We must consider as this goes to an inquiry and we look into what happened with Covid, whether all those regulations were proportionate, or whether it was too hard on people
“I think as we hear these stories, we inevitably grieve for those who suffered, those who could not visit people that they love, their family and could not attend funerals.”
Rees-Mogg also stood by his decision to brand Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives who has called for Johnson to quit, a “lightweight”.
The Commons leader said as Ross “has office within the Conservative Party” he “ought to support the leader of the party”, adding: “That is the honourable and proper thing to do.”
Cabinet ministers pleaded with Tory MPs to wait for the findings of an official investigation into the Downing Street parties before calling for him to quit.
The prime minister pulled out of a planned visit to a vaccination centre in Lancashire on Thursday, where he would have faced questions from the media about his actions, because a family member tested positive for coronavirus.