Rising taxes, middling growth, the spectre of inflation – there’s much at present to get Tory MPs annoyed. But it’s not just the Budget that’s got some of them exercised this week; a damning report into Owen Paterson by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has wound up many on the backbenches. The former Cabinet minister has hit back strongly against claims that he had ‘repeatedly’ used his position to benefit two companies who paid him as a consultant, with Paterson calling on colleagues to waive Parliamentary privilege so he can challenge the inquiry’s findings in the courts.
Jacob Rees-Mogg today told MPs that the Commons will debate and vote on Paterson’s 30-day suspension from Parliament on Wednesday. Normally such votes are a foregone conclusion; a rubber stamp to approve rulings by the Commissioner such as Keith Vaz’s suspension in 2019. But Mr S has spoken to a number of Tory MPs who have been meeting to plot ways to support Paterson and register their discontent with the current Commissioner, Kathryn Stone.
The two predominant sentiments among those who feel Paterson has been mistreated are sympathy, in light of his wife’s tragic suicide, and anger at whether the verdict was a foregone conclusion. One described the process as a ‘kangaroo court,’ pointing to Stone’s letter of September 2 in which she wrote ‘I had decided Mr Paterson had breached the rules by the time I sent him my first memorandum.’ Another claimed Tory MPs were subject to stricter rulings than their Labour equivalents, pointing to Stephen Doughty’s ‘slap on the wrist’ last week for trying to buy a Class C drug from a constituent.
Paterson of course is an older MP viewed as being on the right of his party – a 65 year-old Brexiteer, with much of the initial support (understandably) coming from that wing and profile of the party, accordingly. It’s no surprise that David Davis and Graham Brady have been among the first to publicly put their heads above the parapet to question the ruling. But some in the 2019 cohort admit to feeling ‘pretty sorry’ for Paterson, that it’s ‘all very sad’ and expressing ‘unease’ about the system under which he was investigated.
All eyes now turn to what the government will do, amid calls from Paterson’s supporters for MPs to be given a free vote on his fate. There have only been two proper votes on a standards report’s suspension recommendation – in 1947 and in 1990 – that both failed. Wednesday’s motion looks set to pass given that few, if any, of the 283 (sitting) Opposition MPs look set to publicly back him and that many of the 361 Tory MPs will want to endorse or abstain on the Commissioner’s recommendations.
But however the vote goes, Paterson’s case has wider ramifications for the future. The first is that it adds to a growing sense of discontent among MPs and their spouses about their futures in Parliament. As one said to Mr S: ‘If the party isn’t willing to stand by us when we’re in trouble, why should we carry on?’ adding that there will be ‘many such’ conversations over the Christmas recess. And the second is the future of the Commissioner’s role going forward, amid calls in some quarters to break up the post to separate its prosecution and judicial elements.
The irony of the Paterson case is that it could impact Stone’s future more than the man she probed.
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