The government has done a U-turn on its plans to overhaul the policing of MPs’ conduct after a furious backlash
On Wednesday, Downing Street backed a shake-up of the standards watchdog and blocked the suspension of one of its own former ministers, Owen Paterson.
It sparked an angry reaction from Labour and some Tory MPs, who feared it would look like corruption to voters.
MPs are now likely to vote again on whether Mr Paterson should be excluded from Parliament for 30 days.
Opposition parties refused to cooperate with the government’s plans to change the disciplinary process prompting a hasty rethink from Downing Street.
Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg said the changes would not now go ahead without cross-party support.
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the PM had already been “leading his troops through the sewer”, claiming what had happened in the past 24 hours had been “corrupt”.
This comes after the PM tore up the independent system for combating sleaze within parliament on Wednesday as he threw the government’s weight behind protecting a Tory MP who was found to have repeatedly breached lobbying rules.
Announcing the u-turn, Mr Rees-Mogg told the Commons there was a “strong feeling” that any overhaul of the standards process should not just be based on Mr Paterson’s case, and Wednesday’s Commons vote had “conflated” the two issues.
“This link needs to be broken” he added, saying the government would come back to MPs with more detailed proposals after it had held discussions with the other parties.
Another vote will also take place on whether Mr Paterson should be suspended, with the Commons leader suggesting any future changes to the disciplinary process would not apply retrospectively.
Labour’s shadow leader of the House, Thangam Debbonaire said she was “astonished” by the statement, as her opposite number had openly backed the manoeuvre by Tory MPs and the government on Wednesday.
She said her party would “look with interest” at any new proposal, but would continue to back the existing standards committee and would not participate “in a parallel process”.
The Liberal Democrats called for an emergency debate in the Commons on the issue, which was granted, and it will take place on Monday.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accuses the PM of “leading his troops through the sewer”.
Last week, the Commons Standards Committee concluded that Tory MP Mr Paterson misused his position as an MP to benefit two firms he worked for, after a damning report on his behaviour by standards commissioner Kathryn Stone.
They recommended he be suspended from the Commons for 30 sitting days – a sanction that could also lead to a recall petition in his constituency, and the possibility of him facing a by-election.
Such recommendations – which have to be signed off by MPs – are usually accepted without much discussion.
But on Wednesday, the government ordered its members to vote for an amendment to halt Mr Paterson’s case and to rejig the standards system.
This comes after two councils in England represented by Tory ministers have received money under the government’s flagship “levelling-up” fund despite being among the least deprived of local authorities nationwide. The health secretary Sajid Javid’s constituency of Bromsgrove got £14.5m in the first announced tranche of cash under the scheme.
Standards chair, Labour’s MP Chris Bryant, says the episode has left MPs “in a quagmire”.
Labour, the SNP and Lib Dems voted against the plans, along with 13 Conservative MPs, while dozens of Tories abstained.
But it was carried by 18 votes to cries of “shame” from the opposition benches.
Reacting to Thursday’s U-turn, Sir Keir Starmer said: “What has happened in that last 24 hours is corrupt. There is no other word for it.
“In order to protect on of their own the government voted to pull the entire independent process down.
“It is no wonder they are waking up this morning asking themselves what on earth they’d done.”
