The low esteem in which parliament is held by much of the British public should never be taken as a sign that it cannot sink lower. Since many voters have settled on a cynical view of the Commons, its rehabilitation demands conspicuous readiness to deal strictly with MPs who fall below the required standard.
In the case of Owen Paterson, a report by parliament’s independent standards commissioner leaves no doubt about such a lapse. The MP for North Shropshire was found to have committed an “egregious” breach of rules on “paid advocacy”. Mr Paterson abused the privileges of his office when lobbying on behalf of two separate firms. His claim to be raising public health issues does not justify the commercial promotion of his clients’ services to officials.
It is true also that Mr Paterson has suffered personal tragedy with the loss of his wife, who killed herself last year. That is clearly a reason for compassion on a personal level. It should be kept separate from matters of professional conduct that date back to 2016. On the subject of leniency, opinion might be divided on whether the 30-day Commons suspension that would be a normal reprimand counts as severe in the first place. (A shorter suspension would spare Mr Paterson vulnerability to a recall petition, potentially triggering a byelection.)
But the government has gone much further than a one-off reprieve, on Wednesday whipping Tory MPs behind an amendment to reconfigure the whole system. The move is couched in terms of due process, creating a mechanism for appeal that Mr Paterson might then use with no guarantee of exoneration. The spuriousness of that assertion is clear from the plan to build the new process around a committee under a Tory chair with a casting vote.
Even if it were true that the existing system needs updating, there are proper ways to debate the point and design better arrangements. It should be done outside the consideration of a specific case. Instead, the government has conjured up a supposed “reform” and thrown it across the legislative tracks, derailing the process that was already under way against Mr Paterson. That looks more like a constitutional heist.
The grubbiness is compounded by hypocrisy. Just last month, Conservatives argued that existing rules could not be rewritten to tighten sanctions against Rob Roberts, an MP disciplined for sexual harassment. Mr Roberts avoided the risk of a recall petition via a technical loophole. So the government view is that rules must apply to current cases, except when they mustn’t. The key variable is whether the status quo or ripping it up is the course that most efficiently protects a malfeasant Tory MP.
This approach is consistent with a pattern of disdain for procedures that protect public life from capture and corruption by vested interests. The case of Mr Paterson is not marginal. Tory MPs privately concede that he crossed a line. The government does not want that line policed, perhaps because doing so would embarrass too many of Boris Johnson’s MPs, ministers, their chums and cronies. Hence a precipitous slide away from transparency regarding the informal award of lucrative public contracts, cosiness with lobbyists and the origin of donations to the Tory party.
This is an insidious rot that weakens the foundations of democracy, eating away at public confidence and spreading suspicion of the motives that lead people to seek election. In reality, parliament has many conscientious MPs who serve their constituents honestly and in a spirit of public duty. Mr Johnson’s government on Wednesday betrayed those decent MPs and the people they represent, signalling brazenly that it prefers impunity in the shadows to probity and accountability.
