Kathyrn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, last week recommended a Commons ban of 30 sitting days for Mr Paterson in a report subsequently approved by a group of cross-party group of MPs on the standards committee.
Ms Stone’s inquiry found Mr Paterson repeatedly lobbied on behalf of two companies paying him more than £100,000 per year – Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods – in what the investigation report described as an “egregious case of paid advocacy”.
Mr Paterson argued that most of his approaches to officials fell within the “serious wrong” exemption in the lobbying rules, which permit an MP to approach officials with evidence of a “serious wrong or substantial injustice”.
But with the exception of one meeting about concerns over milk testing, the committee did not accept that Mr Paterson’s approaches fell within the exemption.
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