Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces a fresh by-election headache as ex-Tory MP Scott Benton faces a 35-day suspension following a lobbying scandal.
The decision, if approved by MPs, will lead to a recall petition in his Blackpool South constituency that could trigger a by-election if signed by enough constituents.
It creates a fresh challenge for the Prime Minister, who is also facing a separate by-election in the new year following the six-week suspension of ex-Tory MP Peter Bone, who was found to have committed bullying and sexual misconduct against a staff member.
The Commons standards committee recommended on Thursday that Mr Benton, who now sits as an independent MP, should be suspended for causing “significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons”.
Mr Benton referred himself for investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg, after he was recorded by The Times in April saying that he could table questions to ministers on behalf of lobbyists if they paid him £2,000 to £3,000 a month.
He lost the Tory whip as a result of the sting, but has defended his actions claiming that he immediately sought clarification on the rules around parliamentary lobbying and did not seek to pursue the offer of a part-time job from the fake company.
In his evidence to the investigation, Mr Benton argued that “no parliamentary rules were broken during my one-hour meeting with a fictitious company” and that he felt he “complied with the letter and the spirit of the rules”.
But this was rejected by the standards committee, which stated in its report that his actions constituted a breach of the Code of Conduct for MPs, which states that “Members shall never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons”.
The committee concluded that, during the faked meeting, Mr Benton admitted breaching Commons rules in the past and stated that he “would be willing to breach and/or circumvent the House’s rules for the company in return for payment”.
“Mr Benton made comments to the effect that he and other Members were ‘for sale’,” Mr Greenberg said following his investigation.
“Such an impression, in my opinion, would cause significant damage; it is of a type that corrodes public trust in the integrity and decency of their elected representatives.”
The standards committee recommended that Mr Benton should face a “serious sanction” and be suspended from the Commons for 35 days without pay.
Any suspension from the Commons over 10 days automatically triggers a recall petition in the MP’s constituency which, if signed by 10 per cent of constituents, triggers a by-election.
Mr Benton won Blackpool South, which had previously been held by Labour since 1997, with a narrow majority of 3,690, making it a prime target for Sir Keir Starmer’s party should a by-election be called.