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Jacob Rees-Mogg has admitted the government made “a mistake” defending Owen Paterson after he breached MPs’ lobbying rules as the government completed its U-turn on controversial plans to reform parliament’s standards committee.
The Commons leader said he encouraged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to back an amendment calling for a new standards committee to be set up to develop plans for a new appeals system as he “felt that Owen had been punished enough by the death of his wife”.
Addressing MPs on Tuesday, Mr Rees-Mogg added: “It was simply the tragedy that afflicted Mr Patterson coloured and clouded our judgement – and my judgement – incorrectly. And it is as simple and as sad as that.”
Former prime minister Theresa May criticised the government’s attempt to tear up the rules to help a colleague.
“The attempt by right honourable and honourable members of this house, aided and abetted by the government under cover of reform of the process – effectively to clear his name – was misplaced, ill-judged and just plain wrong,” Mrs May told the Commons.
Mrs May said “damage has been done to all MPs and parliament as a whole”, adding: “It would be a mistake to think that because someone broke the rules, the rules were wrong.”
Tuesday’s Commons debate came as the government successfully carried out a U-turn over the Owen Paterson row through a fresh motion in the Commons which MPs nodded through without a vote.
Earlier this month, Conservative MPs were given a three-line whip to support the amendment, tabled by former cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom.
It called for Tory ex-minister Mr Paterson to be saved from a 30-day suspension from the House of Commons, as well as for a new Conservative-dominated…
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Source : skynews
