A STANDARDS investigation into Stephen Flynn allegedly misusing official stationery has concluded by dismissing the complaint.
The SNP Westminster leader was reported to House of Commons authorities in July after a PR stunt which saw his team hand out mugs stuffed with official parliament compliments slips criticising Labour.
It came amid a row over Keir Starmer’s refusal to commit to repealing the two-child benefit cap should he come to power after the next election.
The policy has previously been compared with China’s one child policy and the SNP handed out mugs in the Westminster press gallery which read: “Controls on family sizes. What’s the point of Labour?”
The matter was investigated by the Standards Committee, which published its report on Thursday and dismissed the complaint.
MPs are entitled to use official stationery for parliamentary purposes but not party political campaigning – a line the complaint against Flynn said he had crossed.
The matter was initially referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards who then passed it to the committee after Flynn disputed the commissioner’s findings he had broken the rules.
The commissioner argued the slogan on the mug was an “eye-catching way to put across a party-political message”.
But Flynn said that such an interpretation would “create a world where boring politics is good, but eye-catching and engaging politics to put forwards a message of importance to my constituents is not”.
The committee report said: “We do not believe that in Mr Flynn’s case issues of great moment are engaged, and we regret that it did not prove possible to conclude this matter at an earlier stage without the need for a formal referral to the committee.
“We take the opportunity to draw members’ attention to the requirement in the stationery rules that house-provided resources should not be used for party political campaigning, but do not consider it would be proportionate for us to take any further action in this particular case.”
