Rees-Mogg expresses doubt over investigation into MP who breached lobbying rules

Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg has expressed doubts over an investigation into a Conservative MP who was found to have broke parliament’s code of conduct regarding lobbying.

The Commons are set to vote tomorrow on whether to approve former minister Owen Paterson’s recommended six-week ban from Parliament.

Downing Street itself has refused to comment on whether the Prime Minister is in favour of the potential 30 day suspension of  the MP.

Under a 2015 law brought in after the expenses scandal, any MP suspended for 10 plus days can face a petition in which constituents can request that a by-election be held.

The support of ten per cent of electors in Paterson’s North Shropshire seat would be required to prompt an election in the constituency.  A similar process led to a by-election in Brecon and Radnorshire in 2019 in which the Conservative Party subsequently lost the seat to the Liberal Democrats.

Mr Paterson had a majority of 22,949 in North Shropshire over Labour in the last 2019 General Election.

The constituency has long been one of the Conservative Party’s safest seats in England.

Mr Rees-Mogg told the ConservativeHome podcast “Moggcast”: “It is always very important that systems appear to be fair, and therefore if somebody has witnesses, it would normally appear to be fair that those witnesses should be heard.

“The commissioner in her report that was adopted … said the witnesses weren’t needed because their evidence they gave wasn’t relevant to the inquiry.

“And that is an interesting view to come to, because other people might say: ‘How do you know whether it was relevant to the inquiry until you’ve taken their evidence and have found out the precise context of how things were done?”‘