A TORY MP has been suspended from Parliament for breaching lobbying rules.
For what has been described as a "significant litany of errors", North West Leicestershire MP Andrew Bridgen has been suspended for five sitting days.
He was found to have breached the MPs' code of conduct "on registration, declaration and paid lobbying on multiple occasions and in multiple ways" by the Commons Standards Committee.
MPs on the committee insisted he showed a "careless and cavalier attitude" to the rules and made a “completely unacceptable attack upon the integrity" of the Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone.
The committee also found Bridgen had an inaccurate entry relating to his advisory role with Cheshire-based forestry firm Mere Plantations for almost two years.
MPs heard how the business donated £5000 to the North West Leicestershire Conservative Association in 2019, took him on a trip to Ghana the same year, and gave him a £12,000-a-year advisor contract the next year.
But he breached rules on "paid advocacy" by initiating five approaches to ministers or officials which "sought to confer a benefit on" the firm.
He also breached the code by failing to declare his interest in the five meetings or eight emails to ministers.
He was recommended for suspension for two days for breaches of two sections of the MP's code of conduct and a further three sitting days for the "unacceptable attack upon the integrity" of the Standards Commissioner.
The MP wrote an email to Stone saying: “I was distressed to hear on a number of occasions 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 investigations.
"Clearly, my own travails with Number 10 and the former PM have been well documented and obviously a small part of me is naturally concerned to hear such rumours.
"More importantly, however, you are rightfully renowned for your integrity and decency and no doubt such rumours are only designed to harm your reputation."
The Standards Committee said Bridgen’s email “appears to be an attempt to place wholly inappropriate pressure on the commissioner” which is “completely unacceptable behaviour."
