Politics
Rishi Sunak faces prospect of by-election as MP Scott Benton recommended for 35-day suspension
Rishi Sunak is facing another by-election after the Commons standards committee recommended MP Scott Benton be suspended from the chamber for 35 days.
Mr Benton was suspended from the parliamentary Tory party in April after being caught by The Times suggesting he would be willing to break lobbying rules for money.
In its ruling handed down this morning, the committee said “by repeatedly indicating his willingness to disregard the House’s rules, and by giving the impression that many Members of the House had in the past and will in the future engage in such misconduct, Mr Benton committed a very serious breach” of the rules.
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A suspension of more than 10 days – if passed by a vote in the Commons – means that a recall petition is triggered.
This means Mr Benton’s constituents can decide whether they want to hold a by-election.
He was elected as the Tory MP for Blackpool South in 2019, and has a majority of just 3,690. It had been a Labour seat since 1997 – but was Conservative before that.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have both overturned five-figure majorities in recent by-elections.
The committee highlighted aggravating factors in their decision about Mr Benton – including him providing an “incomplete and incorrect picture of what had transpired”.
They also noted that it was a “repeat offence, or indication that the offence was part of a pattern of behaviour”.
‘Toxic message about standards in parliament’
“Mr Benton’s comments about his past willingness to collude with companies in making false valuations of hospitality suggest that this could have been a pattern of conduct on his part,” they added.
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The committee categorised what the former Tory MP did as an “extremely serious breach”.
The report added: “The message he gave to his interlocutors at the 7 March meeting was that he was corrupt and ‘for sale’, and that so were many other members of the House. He communicated a toxic message about standards in parliament.”
The 35-day suspension is one of the longest ever recommended by the committee – although Boris Johnson would have been recommended for a 90-day period if he had not resigned from the Commons first for misleading parliament over the Partygate scandal.
Mr Benton met undercover reporters from The Times who were posing as employees of a fake lobbying company.
The chair of the all-party parliamentary group for betting and gaming suggested he would be happy to be paid between £2,000 and £4,000 a month to help the fake company – complete with a logo, website and office addresses in London and Chennai in India.
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There are strict rules that prevent MPs from carrying out paid lobbying or advising how to influence parliament.
Mr Benton ultimately did not accept any financial payment arising from the meeting.