Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson would have faced a 90-days’ suspension from the Commons if he had not resigned.
The Privileges Committee decided he had deliberately misled MPs over “Partygate”.
In the committee’s long-awaited report – some 14 months in the making – it said:
“We conclude that when he [Mr Johnson] told the House and this Committee that the Rules and Guidance were being complied with, his own knowledge was such that he deliberately misled the House and this Committee.”
The committee said it would have recommended a suspension of 90 days if he had not quit as a Tory MP last Friday.
The report added:
“If he had not resigned his seat, we would have recommended that he be suspended from the service of the House for 90-days for repeated contempt and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process”.
In a “flame licked” statement Mr Johnson dismissed the findings as “tripe” and “deranged”.
He said the committee was “beneath contempt and part of a protracted political assassination”.
He added:
“We didn’t believe that what we were doing was wrong, and after a year of work the Privileges Committee found not a shred of evidence that we did.”