The European court of human rights has dismissed an appeal by the former MP Owen Paterson against the parliamentary report that preceded his political downfall.
Paterson, a former environment secretary and influential pro-Brexit Conservative, resigned as an MP in 2021 after an investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards established that he had repeatedly engaged in improper lobbying.
The investigation began in 2019 after the Guardian reported that Paterson had lobbied ministers and officials, asking them to take steps that would benefit two companies that were paying him to be their consultant.
Two years later the commissioner, Kathryn Stone, found that Paterson had made 14 approaches to ministers and officials. A committee of MPs recommended he be suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days over the “egregious” breach of lobbying rules.
Paterson resigned after a failed attempt by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, to protect him by forcing MPs to vote to suspend the parliamentary standards procedure.
The next year Paterson, a long-standing eurosceptic, announced that he would take the British government to the European court in an attempt to have the investigation into his conduct declared unfair.
On Thursday, the court unanimously rejected his complaint, finding that the parliamentary investigation to have been fair.
Paterson had complained that “following publication [of the investigation] he was no longer engaged with the local community, was not invited to events, and was shunned by many people he had considered friends. He gave examples of being shouted at in the street”, according to the ruling.
“As a consequence, he has found it difficult to attend events; for example, on the occasion of the coronation of King Charles III he did not attend any events for fear of embarrassing his hosts.”
Paterson said he had been unable to obtain paid or unpaid work after resigning. “He has lost his income as an MP, and the two companies that had retained his consultancy services had cut all ties with him. He has calculated his net loss to be 120,000 British pounds net per annum,” the judges summarised.
“Without this income, and without other employment opportunities, he has had to support himself using savings, pension income and income from rental property.”
Paterson told the court of the stress the investigation had placed on his family, during which time his wife, Rose, took her own life. He said he believed the investigation was a contributing factor.
The European court found Paterson could not attribute any financial loss to the investigation. “As he himself resigned from the House of Commons before the house could consider whether or not to apply the recommended sanction [of suspension], neither the loss of his seat nor the loss of income from his position as an MP were a necessary consequence of the investigation,” the judges concluded.
“Moreover, he has provided no documentary evidence to substantiate his claims that he lost his consultancy work, and has since been unable to find either paid employment or charitable work, as a direct consequence of the committee’s findings.”
Paterson also argued that the commissioner’s report should not be protected by parliamentary privilege, suggesting such protection should be reserved for proceedings “on the floor of the house”. The court did not agree.
There was “a legitimate public interest for the public to know the outcome of the parliamentary investigation into a complaint about the applicant’s conduct as an MP”, the judges concluded.
