Boris Johnson tells MPs officials did not need to be present at Alexander Lebedev event.
The appointment has been shrouded in controversy after The Sunday Times newspaper alleged security services withdrew an assessment that the peerage posed a national security risk after the prime minister intervened.
But ministers withheld information from Parliament citing national security - despite MPs voting for it to be released.Meanwhile, Mr Johnson has been under mounting pressure to explain the nature of his meeting with Mr Lebedev's father Alexander in April 2018, at the oligarch's Italian home. The prime minister confirmed the meeting with Mr Lebedev, who bought the Evening Standard with his son in 2009 but later stepped down from the company, at the Commons Liaison Committee earlier this month.
"It would not have been normal practice for civil servants or security staff to have accompanied me to such a private, social occasion," he wrote.
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