MP STANDS BY OWEN PATERSON VOTE AFTER GOVERNMENT U-TURN
City MP one of 250 to block his suspension
STOKE-ON-TRENT Conservative MP Jack Brereton says he does not regret voting to block the suspension of Owen Paterson – despite the government’s swift U-turn on the issue.
The Stoke-on-trent South MP was one of 250 who voted with the government last week on the controversial proposal to put on hold Mr Paterson’s 30-day suspension for breaking lobbying rules, pending the outcome an overhaul of the standards system.
But following a backlash from opposition parties, the public and the media, the government backed down and said the review of standards would only go ahead with crossparty support and would not apply retroactively to Mr Paterson’s case.
Since then there have been reports of backbench Tory MPS expressing anger at being whipped to support the government on a highly controversial issue – only to have ministers perform a U-turn less than 24 hours later.
But during an interview on the BBC1’S Politics Midlands programme on Sunday, Mr Brereton stood by his vote.
He said: “I don’t regret any votes that I vote for. I vote with a very clear mind every time I vote on behalf of my constituents.
“But the reality is we’ve come across a situation where we need to address that this has to be a system that has cross-party support. Otherwise it just won’t work.
“Clearly Owen did do some wrong and this vote didn’t reject the fact that he did wrong.”
Mr Brereton also firmly rejected claims that MPS in ‘red wall’ seats had been threatened with the withdrawal of funding if they did not support the government, describing this as ‘utterly ridiculous’.
He added: “These claims are absolutely bizarre. Stoke-on-trent has only just received £56 million from the Levelling Up Fund.”
Mr Paterson, who resigned as MP for North Shropshire following the government’s U-turn, was found to have made an ‘egregious breach’ of lobbying rules by the cross-party standards committee.
This was after he had repeatedly lobbied ministers on behalf of two companies which were paying him £100,000 a year.
Mr Paterson’s proposed 30-day suspension had to be approved by the House of Commons, but Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom proposed an amendment to halt the case in order to allow a review of the standards system to be undertaken.
Significantly, the Tories would have had a majority on the committee carrying out the review.
Opponents argued that Mr Paterson’s individual case and the wider issue of reforming the standards system should have been dealt with separately. Newcastle MP Aaron Bell, who was among those who made this point during the debate, was one of 13 Tories who voted against the government.
Stoke-on-trent Central’s Jo Gideon, Stone’s Bill Cash and Congleton’s Fiona Bruce all voted with the government.