Alister Jack did not vote in favour of a report which said that Boris Johnson had lied to parliament about partygate because he believed the sanction was "excessive".
Some 354 MPs voted in favour of the privileges committee's report on Monday night, which said that Johnson should have been suspended from the House of Commons for 90 days if he had not resigned already. It also recommended he is not given an ex-MPs parliamentary pass.
Only seven MPs voted against the recommendation, but hundreds did not show up or chose not to vote. These included Jack, 12 SNP MPs and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Tory minister Jack is a close ally of Johnson, who made the Dumfries and Galloway MP Scotland Secretary in 2019. A source close to Jack said that he decided against voting because he believed the sanction was "excessive".
Sunak was labelled "weak" for "ducking out" of the vote. The PM said that he had a prior engagement he could not get out of.
Labour Shadow Scotland Secretary Ian Murray said it was "inconceivable" that Jack and the 12 SNP MPs did not vote.
Murray said: “It’s inconceivable that the Secretary of State and many SNP MPs were not in parliament to vote through this report.
"The Prime Minister himself ducked out as he is too weak to take on these big decisions but others, who weren’t formally absent, will have to explain to their constituents why they didn’t turn up.”
The five other Scottish Tory MPs, the four Scottish Lib Dem MPs and sole Scottish Labour MP Murray voted in favour of the report's recommendations. Independent MP Margaret Ferrier could not vote as she is currently suspended from the House.
Johnson quit as an MP earlier this month after reading the report before it was published.
The report, which was released last week, slammed him for deliberately misleading MPs and “being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation” of the privileges committee.
It said the former Tory Prime Minister committed “repeated contempts” of Parliament with his partygate denials.
SNP Scotland spokesperson Philippa Whitford said: "Boris Johnson not only misled and lied to the House of Commons, but to the entire UK.
"Those left scarred by the pandemic, through bereavement or illness, will not 'just move on'.
"While he denies any wish for a peerage, one has to ask whether, in truth, Alister Jack is so keen to secure a place in the House of Lords that he maintains his unwavering support for a serial liar.
"This is yet another reminder of how broken and corrupt the Westminster system is - and why it is essential that Scotland becomes an independent country, so we can escape Westminster control and get rid of unelected Tory governments for good."
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