Conservative MPs set to veto Owen Paterson’s parliament suspension
Tory MPs are expected to veto the recommended 30-day parliamentary suspension of former cabinet minister Owen Paterson today and instead hand his case to a Conservative-led panel.
Parliament will vote on the North Shropshire MP’s fate today, with his backers in the Tory party attempting to table a series of amendments to stop the 30-day suspension.
Ministers are preparing to back the plan, with Labour accusing the government of “a return to the worst of the 1990s Tory sleaze culture”.
Parliamentary commissioner for standards Kathryn Stone ruled last month that Paterson broke lobbying rules during his work for clinical diagnostics firm Randox and manufacturer Lynn’s Country Foods.
He was paid £100,000 a year by the two firms.
Paterson contacted the Food Standards Agency, a regulator, on behalf of these firms at least 10 times and did not declare his lobbying activities, according to Stone.
Westminster’s Standards Committee said Paterson’s “actions were an egregious case of paid advocacy, that he repeatedly used his privileged position to benefit two companies for whom he was a paid consultant, and that this has brought the House into disrepute”.
The recommended punishment was a 30 day parliamentary suspension.
Paterson, a former shadow cabinet minister, claims that he only contacted the Food Standards Agency to warn them about potentially harmful products and that Stone’s investigated was biased.
He also claims the investigation played a part in the suicide of his wife last year.
Tory MP Andrea Leadsom is tabling an amendment, which is now likely to be selected for a vote, that would veto the suspension and dismantle Westminster’s standards process.
Leadsom’s amendment will say Paterson’s case should be decided by a new committee by February 2022, with a motion proposing changes to the Standards Committee proposed in five days.
The proposed new committee would reportedly be a panel of three Conservative and two Labour MPs.
City minister John Glen told Times Radio: “What I think is important is that concerns around the process of that investigation are aired and discussed in the House of Commons. That’s what this is about. Not the MP should be beyond scrutiny, but that there are legitimate issues that Owen Paterson wants to raise.
“My colleague Andrea Leadsom, as I understand it, has tabled an amendment and the House of Commons as a whole will look at the effectiveness of that scrutiny of what he was alleged to have done and come to a conclusion.”
Labour shadow leader of the House of Commons Thangam Debbonaire said: “It is shocking that government ministers are being encouraged to vote for a return to the worst of the 1990s Tory sleaze culture.
“A vote for this amendment would turn the clock back to the era of Neil Hamilton, cash for questions and no independent standards process.”
Kathryn Stone’s investigation found that Paterson approached the Food Standards Agency three times on behalf of Randox and the testing of antibiotics in milk.
He made another seven approaches to the same body on behalf of Lynn’s Country Foods.
Paterson also contacted the now defunct Department for International Development four times on behalf of Randox to speak about blood testing technology.
The Tory MP did not declare this activity and used his parliamentary office on 16 occasions for business meetings with his clients, according to Stone.
Paterson claims that Stone “admitted making her mind up before speaking to me or any witnesses” and that the investigation was “a biased process and not fair”.
He also says he only approached regulators about concerns of the safety of pork and milk products.
“Last summer, in the midst of the investigation, my wife of 40 years, Rose, took her own life. We will never know definitively what drove her to suicide, but the manner in which this investigation was conducted undoubtedly played a major role,” Paterson said.
“Rose would ask me despairingly every weekend about the progress of the inquiry, convinced that the investigation would go to any lengths to somehow find me in the wrong.”