Owen Paterson avoids Commons suspension after parliamentary vote

Parliament had been asked to vote on a standards committee recommendation to suspend the North Shropshire MP for 30 days for an 'egregious' breach of lobbying rules.

However, an amendment from Andrea Leadsom MP, called on MPs to back an overhaul of the disciplinary process and a review of Mr Paterson's case – giving him a stay of execution and hopes of a reprieve.

During Prime Minister's Questions Boris Johnson had backed the move for the review of the process.

This afternoon MPs voted to approve the amendment by 250 to 232.

The decision means Mr Paterson, who has represented his constituency since 1997, will not be suspended and will not face a recall petition – measures which will now wait for the outcome of a review of his case.

The North Shropshire MP had strongly rejected the findings of the committee, insisting he was prepared to challenge the conclusion in court.

The committee’s recommendation related to Mr Paterson’s paid consultancies with Randox and Lynn’s Country Food – which the committee said paid him nearly three times his £81,000 parliamentary salary.

The committee concluded his 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 he had “brought the House into disrepute”.

In an angry response Mr Paterson said his witnesses had not been interviewed and that his guilt had been pre-judged – claims the committee rejected.

Mr Paterson also claimed that the inquiry had played a major factor in the death of his wife Rose by suicide in June 2020.

The North Shropshire MP said that the three matters highlighted by the committee as breaches had all been to address issues of public safety – rather than to secure a benefit for the firms that pay him.

He argued that the issues he raised during meetings on the parliamentary estate, which were the subject of the committee’s investigation, and in e-mails to the Food Standards Agency, were those of public importance and food safety – relating to milk and ham.

He also defended speaking to ministers at the Department for International Development about improving laboratory tests in developing countries – deemed by the committee to be a potential benefit to Randox.

He said: “I raised serious issues of food contaminated with unlawful carcinogenic substances, to protect the public. I did not gain any benefit, financial or otherwise, either for myself or for either of the two companies that I advise. Neither has any evidence of gain by those companies been suggested.

“My actions are permitted by the rules of the House. I acted properly in raising serious issues of health and officials I engaged with have accepted this.

“The MPs’ Code of Conduct says that ‘Members have a general duty to act in the interests of the nation as a whole’. The rules clearly permit all MPs to initiate discussions with ministers and officials to address ‘a serious wrong or substantial injustice’. I was acting in the public interest when I raised these three issues of public health.”

However, the committee rejected his claims, saying: “The fact that there was no immediate financial benefit secured by Randox or Lynn’s, and that witnesses have supported Mr Paterson’s claim that he was motivated by issues of public policy, appears to have misled Mr Paterson into thinking that he could not have breached the rules.

“But Mr Paterson’s approaches could clearly have conferred significant benefits on Randox and Lynn’s in the long term and even in the short term secured meetings that were not available without Mr Paterson’s involvement.”

It added: “The committee commented that it does not doubt that Mr Paterson sincerely believes that he has acted properly.

“Mr Paterson is clearly convinced in his own mind that there could be no conflict between his private interest and the public interest in his actions in this case.

“But it is this same conviction that meant that Mr Paterson failed to establish the proper boundaries between his private commercial work and his parliamentary activities, as set out in the guide to the rules.”