Jeremy Wright has called on Boris Johnson to resign following the publication of the Sue Gray report.

Whilst the MP for Kenilworth and Southam said he was not convinced that the PM had lied to parliament, he said the partygate affair has caused "real and lasting damage" to the government's reputation.

He said apologies from No. 10 and the government would not be enough to restore the public's faith and that: "I have therefore, with regret, concluded that, for the good of this and future governments, the Prime Minister should resign."

Whilst Mr Wright now becomes the 11th Tory MP to publicly call on the PM to resign in the last week, it is not clear whether the former attorney general has submitted a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson's leadership.

The MP for Kenilworth and Southam had previously stated that if the PM had misled parliament over the partygate affair, then he must resign.

He said he would wait for the full report to make up his mind, but following its publication said he had "seen nothing in Sue Gray's report to change my view" that the PM "could genuinely and reasonably" believed that no rules were broken at gatherings he attended.

Mr Wright said the report was most damning of Martin Reynolds, the Prime Minister's principal private secretary, and added that the worst behaviour happened when the PM was not present.

But he said: "I also find it inconceivable that senior officials and advisers would have tolerated, facilitated and even encouraged the breaking of Covid rules if they believed that the Prime Minister would have been horrified and outraged by what was happening in Downing Street when he was not there. 

"If leadership is in part about setting the right tone for the organisation you lead, the tone represented by the routine disregard for the spirit, and often the letter of the Covid rules which Sue Gray describes betrayed at best a casual and at worst a contemptuous attitude to the sacrifices made and distress felt by the many who observed rigorously both spirit and letter of those rules.

"I find it impossible to accept that the Prime Minister does not bear some personal responsibility for that tone."

His full statement can be read here.