Anonymity for MPS who cheat on expenses
MPS alleged to have cheated on their Parliamentary expenses will be given anonymity under new rules, it has emerged as a record ban was handed to an MP for failing to declare an expenses-paid holiday to Sri Lanka.
The Government has been accused of protecting “the sensitivities of politicians” after attempting to quietly push through a change that would hide the names of all MPS under investigation.
Since 2010, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has listed MPS under inquiry on its website and rulings are also automatically published.
The proposed change would make the process anonymous.
It comes as the commissioner yesterday gave Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, a record 30-day suspension from the House of Commons over two family holidays funded by the Sri Lankan government, which were revealed by The Daily Telegraph last year.
Under the proposed change, Mr Paisley’s investigation would not have been made public and the ruling might also not have been declared. The plans were yesterday published by a crossparty group led by Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, that was established last year in the wake of the sexual harassment scandal.
A source said the new rules were justified because victims of sexual harassment and bullying were too easy to identify under the existing system. But they apply to all cases, including expenses allegations. The Committee on Standards is to oppose the plans today.
A LEADING DUP MP faces a record 30day suspension from Parliament after The Daily Telegraph exposed how he accepted holidays worth £100,000 from a country that he later helped secure a post-brexit trade deal.
Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, ruled that Ian Paisley Jnr, one of the most high-profile DUP MPS, breached Commons rules by failing to declare two visits he and family made to Sri Lanka.
Ms Stone found that Mr Paisley went on to engage in “paid advocacy” by lobbying David Cameron in favour of the Sri Lankan regime, which had funded the business-class trips.
The House of Commons standards committee accepted the commissioner’s findings and said Mr Paisley had committed “serious misconduct” and should receive a suspension from Parliament lasting 30 sitting days.
The suspension, which will have to be approved by the Commons today, would be the longest since 1949, when records began. It will begin on Sept 4, reducing Mrs May’s working majority by one until mid-november, at a crucial time for the Prime Minister as she attempts to push key Brexit legislation through Parliament.
The Telegraph revealed in September 2017 that Mr Paisley had accepted two all-expenses-paid trips from the Sri Lankan government – both of which he failed to list in the Commons Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Documents seen by The Telegraph showed that Mr Paisley took his wife and four children to Sri Lanka. They flew business class, stayed in the finest hotels and were provided with a chauffeur-driven Mercedes, all paid for by the Sri Lankan government.
In March 2014, he wrote to Mr Cameron, then Prime Minister, appealing for the Government “not to support a UN resolution ‘internationalising’ the conflict in that country”, the standards committee report said. At the time, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had published a report highlighting a “number of negative developments” in Sri Lanka where the human rights situation was already “of serious concern”.
Mr Paisley admitted he had breached
‘He was conscious of the potential embarrassment were it to become known he had accepted hospitality’
the rules by failing to register the Sri Lankan government’s hospitality in the register of interests.
But he disputed the commissioner’s findings that he should also have declared the trips to Mr Cameron, and denied that he had breached the rules on paid advocacy.
Mr Paisley did register a third visit he undertook without his family, to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2013.
The committee said it was “difficult … to avoid the conclusion that Mr Paisley was conscious of the potential embarrassment that would be caused to him were it to become publicly known that he had accepted very expensive hospitality, for himself and his family, from a foreign government accused of serious human rights violations”.