The Labour MP Keith Vaz has been formally suspended from the Commons for six months for offering to buy drugs for sex workers and failing to cooperate with an investigation, after the Commons endorsed the findings of an inquiry.
The case of the Leicester East MP was rushed through the Commons before the dissolution of parliament next week so as to assist the Labour party if it decides to prevent him from standing again in the 12 December election.
Following a brief Commons debate on the report by the standards committee, published on Monday, it was endorsed without a vote.
If Vaz is re-elected he could face further action from the committee over comments posted to his personal website following the report, the Commons was told.
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, who also represents a Leicester seat, told the debate that the statement on Vaz’s website dismissed the inquiry’s finding, calling some of the evidence “completed discredited”, and denied he had been uncooperative.
In response the chair of the standards committee, Labour’s Kate Green, said it would be open for the newly-constituted committee to hear a complaint about this. If Vaz was re-elected, she added, his six-month suspension would be held over to the next parliament.
The inquiry into Vaz examined claims published in the Sunday Mirror in 2016 that he offered to buy cocaine for male sex workers while posing as an industrial washing machine salesman.
Vaz’s explanation, which included that he had amnesia and could not recall key events, was “not believable and, indeed, ludicrous”, the inquiry found.
It examined claims that Vaz visited a flat he owned and met two men who recorded the events that followed. Vaz told the Romanian male escorts his name was Jim and he was a washing machine salesman. He was quoted discussing the possibility of obtaining cocaine for them next time they met, although he reportedly said he would not want to take the drug himself.
After claims by Vaz’s friends that the MP may have been drugged during the newspaper sting, the Mirror released details of what it claimed was a second meeting between Vaz and the two men. It included a transcript of him allegedly ordering them to take up sexual positions.
The endorsement of the inquiry’s findings by MPs will assist Labour if the central party decides to prevent Vaz from standing again.
Vaz has received support on Twitter from his local constituency association in the event that he decides to stand again. Labour’s ruling body is due to discuss his case this week.
