A CONSERVATIVE MP who faces suspension from the Commons has claimed an inquiry into his behaviour may have contributed to his wife’s suicide.

Owen Paterson has been sanctioned in a ruling today by the Commons standards commissioner Kathryn Stone, after working as a consultant for two firms.

The former cabinet minister could lose his seat if enough of his North Shropshire constituents trigger a by-election.

Ms Stone ruled that the MP committed an “egregious” breach of paid advocacy rules when he worked as a consultant for diagnostics firm Randox, a role he has held since August 2015, as well as working as a consultant for food processor Lynn’s Country Foods since December 2016.

The commissioner found that Mr Paterson made three approaches to the Food Standards Agency relating to Randox and testing milk for antibiotics, seven approaches to the same body relating to Lynn’s Country Foods and spoke to ministers at the Department of International Development four times in regards to Randox and bloody testing technology.

Ms Stone said the MP had failed to declare his interest in the firms during the approaches and used his parliamentary office for business meetings with his clients 16 times between October 2016 and February 2020.

He also sent two letters using taxpayer-funded Commons notepaper about his business interests.

The Commissioner called the MP’s conduct an “egregious case of paid advocacy” and said he had “repeatedly used his privileged position to benefit two companies for whom he was a paid consultant, and that this has brought the house into disrepute”.

The standards committee ruled Mr Paterson should be suspended from the Commons for 30 sitting days.

In a lengthy rebuttal, Mr Paterson said he rejected the commissioner’s findings and the investigation had been biased from the beginning.

He also added: “On a personal level, the cost to me and my three grown-up children from the manner of this investigation has been catastrophic.

“Last summer, in the midst of the investigation, my wife of 40 years, Rose, took her own life. We will never know definitively what drove her to suicide, but the manner in which this investigation was conducted undoubtedly played a major role.”

He said his late wife asked him “every weekend” about the inquiry, and was “convinced that the investigation would go to any lengths to somehow find me in the wrong.”

The MP added: “The longer the investigation went on and the more the questions went further and further from the original accusations, the more her anxiety increased.  

“She felt beleaguered as I was bound by confidentiality and could not discuss this Inquiry with anyone else.”

He said his wife was “convinced” the inquiry would ruin his reputation and he would be forced to resign, and she would also have to give up her roles as Chairman of Aintree Racecourse and a Steward of the Jockey Club “of which she was rightly enormously proud.”

The MP added that “no other MP should ever again be subject to this shockingly inadequate process” and said: “ As in normal judicial proceedings, MPs subject to investigations must have a chance to see their evidence fully considered.

“There must be no mystery about interpretations of law that investigations apply.

“The Committee for Standards has been clear that the Office of the Commissioner is under an obligation to respond to points made by MPs under investigation. Normal judicial processes, such as the levelling of charges and the interviewing of witnesses, must be followed.

“If witness evidence is not challenged, it must stand.  It is absolutely extraordinary that not one of the 17 witnesses, all of whom supported my narrative, were never contacted let alone spoken to by the Commissioner or the Committee.”

He insists that he “acted properly, honestly and within the Rules.”