Tory MP Andrew Bridgen has been suspended from Parliament for five sitting days days after breaching lobbying rules in a "significant litany of errors".
The Commons Standards Committee found he breached the MPs' code of conduct "on registration, declaration and paid lobbying on multiple occasions and in multiple ways".
MPs blasted his "careless and cavalier attitude" to the rules - and said once he was under investigation, he tried to "pressure" Parliament's Standards Commissioner with a “completely unacceptable attack" on her integrity.
Mr Bridgen appealed the finding but his appeal was dismissed last month.
Standards Committee chairman Chris Bryant said Mr Bridgen should make his apology "as soon as possible after he comes back".
November’s report found Mr Bridgen wrongly noted his advisory role with forestry firm Mere Plantations for almost two years.
The Cheshire-based firm took him on a trip to its teak plantation in Ghana, gave him a £12,000-a-year advisor contract, and donated £5,000 to his local North West Leicestershire Conservative Association.
Yet he breached rules on "paid advocacy" by initiating five approaches to ministers or officials which "sought to confer a benefit on" the firm. He failed to declare his interest in the meetings, and in eight emails to Ministers.
The Committee recommended he was suspended from the Commons for five sitting days - two for the lobbying breaches and three for his "attack" on the Commissioner. He was also told to apologise.
But the suspension is less than the 10 days needed to trigger a recall petition and a by-election.
Mr Bridgen said in a statement in November "Whilst I am extremely disappointed with the recommendations of the committee, I accept them and will comply with them as required to do so."
Mr Bridgen has been MP for North West Leicestershire since 2010 and is known for having put in letters of no confidence in multiple Prime Ministers, including most recently Liz Truss .
He claimed weeks after signing a contract as an advisor to Mere Plantations in April 2020, he decided not to take payment.
He added he never undertook the duties under the contract and it effectively never started.
But he did not "revoke or repudiate the contract". The Committee found he should have ended it if he never intended to do the job.
The Committee found the trip to Ghana and the donation to his local party both counted as an "outside reward or consideration", despite Mr Bridgen claiming they were did not benefit him personally financially.
And it found Mr Bridgen had a “firm and specific expectation” of payment under the lobbying rules, because he could have invoiced the firm if he wanted to.
After an investigation was launched, he then tried to "improperly influence" Parliament's Standards Commissioner, the investigation found - a further breach of the Code.
He wrote to Kathryn Stone saying he'd heard "an unsubstantiated rumour that your contract as Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is due to end in the coming months and that there are advanced plans to offer you a peerage, potentially as soon as the Prime Minister’s resignation honours list.
"There is also some suggestion amongst colleagues that those plans are dependent upon arriving at the ‘right’ outcomes when conducting parliamentary standards investigation […]."
He then asked for her "reassurance" that the rumours were "indeed malicious and baseless."
He claimed he was just “seeking assurance” but the Committee found the email “appears to be an attempt to place wholly inappropriate pressure on the Commissioner." It added: "This was completely unacceptable behaviour.”
In mitigation, the committee found: "Mr Bridgen's actions began as the pursuit of a constituency interest, and even those approaches we have found in breach of the lobbying rules appear to be motivated in part by a passion for, and interest in, issues of climate change and international development;
"Mr Bridgen has reflected on his conduct and, when pressed, told the Committee in oral evidence that he would act differently in a similar situation in the future."
