Claim

Johnson suggested this as one of the reasons why he had prorogued parliament.

Facts

The domestic violence bill, officially the domestic abuse bill, had had its first reading in the Commons on 16 July, before prorogation. As the Institute for Government pointed out, when the government announced prorogation bills then in Parliament like the domestic abuse bill were “understood to have fallen.” 

The institute added: “This means they would have needed to be reintroduced from scratch in the next session.” It was only because the Supreme Court ruled that prorogation was unlawful that the bill returned to the Commons for its second reading on 2 October.

Verdict

Johnson was misleading parliament when he told MPs that he wanted a Queen’s Speech so that he could bring back the domestic abuse bill.