Downing Street has confirmed that Boris Johnson backs an extraordinary attempt by backbench Conservative MPs to shake up the parliamentary standards system, in order to protect their colleague Owen Paterson. A No 10 spokesperson said: “This isn’t about one case, but providing members of parliament from all political parties with the right to a fair hearing.” They pointed to the lack of an appeals process when parliament’s sleaze watchdog finds against an MP, saying: “As in any normal workplace and all walks of life, people should be entitled to the right to appeal. This is sacrosanct in providing fairness and natural justice, and ensuring there is an opportunity to check due process and that the right procedures were followed.”
Downing Street sources confirmed that meant the prime minister was supporting an amendment tabled by the former leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom that would halt Paterson’s suspension. It was confirmed that the amendment had been selected by the Speaker, and would thus be voted on by MPs later on Wednesday. The parliamentary commissioner for standards called for the North Shropshire MP to be suspended after he committed an “egregious” breach of lobbying rules on behalf of two companies that were paying him more than £100,000. Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, challenged Johnson directly over the issue at prime minister’s questions, accusing him of trying to “change the rules to allow cash for access”. Standing in for Keir Starmer, who is self-isolating with Covid, Rayner told the prime minister: “In no other profession in our country could someone be found guilty by an independent process and just have their mates vote them back into the job.” Replying, Johnson thumped the dispatch box as he said “paid advocacy is wrong”, but insisted that was “not the issue in this case”. “The issue in this case, which involves a serious family tragedy, is whether a member of this house had a fair opportunity to make representations in this case, and whether as a matter of natural justice our procedures in this house allow for proper appeal.” He accused Labour of “playing politics”, but Rayner said: “If it was a police officer, a teacher, a doctor, we would expect the independent process to be followed and not changed after the verdict – it’s one rule for them, and one rule for the rest of us.”
Paterson was found to have broken three rules when he lobbied government on behalf of two firms: Randox, a clinical diagnostics company, and Lynn’s Country Foods, a processor and distributor of meat products. The former environment and Northern Ireland secretary said he was acting as a whistleblower to raise concerns with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Department for International Development about milk and bacon standards. However, the standards commissioner accepted that while this applied for the original communication and meeting he held, it did not to the subsequent ones. Paterson was found to have praised Randox’s “superior technology”, which the standards committee said was an attempt to “confer a benefit on Randox, to whom he was a paid consultant”. Other messages sent by him to the FSA in November 2017 promoting Lynn’s Country Foods were found to be potentially directly beneficial to the company. The commissioner also found Paterson used his parliamentary office and meeting facilities in parliament 25 times for his work for paying clients, and that there were two letters sent on parliamentary paper. The combination of factors led to the commissioner saying Paterson’s breaches “were so serious and so numerous that they risked damaging public trust” in the House of Commons and in MPs generally. Paterson has protested his innocence and claimed 17 witnesses whom he wanted to be able to give oral evidence in his defence were not called to do so – though the committee said this was because their written evidence was sufficient, and it was not a question of what Paterson’s motivations were, but simply of the fact of whether he broke the rules or not. Despite the last-ditch bid to save Paterson, some Tories are very uncomfortable. A minister told the Guardian they were “being asked to do something which is cutting corners and allowing my integrity to be questioned as a result of someone else’s silliness”, adding that Paterson was “clearly way over the line”.