Chief whip Mark Spencer must quit in Owen Paterson suspension row, say MPs

“The problem is that Mark has lost credibility,” one minister said. “The perception is that he hasn’t given the right information to the centre. That is going to create problems with the management of the party going forward.”

Some Tory MPs called on him to quit. “He’s a spent force, he’s got to go,” one said. “He’s managed to piss everyone off. He needs to get back to his combine harvester [Spencer is a farmer] and be done with it. This is unsustainable.”

Nikki da Costa, who was until recently director of legislative affairs in Downing Street, publicly defended Spencer and criticised his critics in No 10. She said: “Chief whips are Praetorian Guard for a PM/leader. They’re last minister standing when everyone has deserted. With one recent exception they don’t talk to press even off the record — they don’t fight back. If briefing against a chief from within No 10, it says more about them than him.”

Owen Paterson said last night that he was quitting his £110,000-a-year consultancy posts

PAUL ELLIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Rees-Mogg also faced criticism from colleagues. “Jacob is up to his neck in this, his fingerprints are all over it,” another cabinet minister said. “Has this damaged the credibility of the whip’s office? Undoubtedly. Is it all Mark Spencer’s fault? Undoubtedly not.”

The prime minister has made clear that he stands by both Spencer and Rees-Mogg. Senior Conservative MPs have said that Johnson bears the blame for the handling of the Paterson vote, having pushed a hardline approach.

Downing Street has denied that it was part of a “pre-emptive strike” against Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, amid concerns that she could open an investigation into Johnson’s Downing Street flat revamp.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, publicly suggested that she should quit after the fallout from the vote on Thursday. Cabinet ministers fear that Stone could be significantly “emboldened”. “An emboldened Kathryn Stone with much-enhanced sympathies from our party and others in a much stronger position,” one said. “She’s untouchable.”

Other senior Tories say that Johnson was personally responsible. “He needs someone to stand up to him and say no,” one said.

Paterson has said he is quitting his £110,000-a-year consultancy posts. The former cabinet minister said last night that he was focusing on his family and campaigning to prevent suicides.

Paterson was being paid £100,000 per year as a consultant to Randox, a clinical diagnostics firm, and £12,000 to advise Lynn’s Country Foods, a meat processor and distributor.

In a statement on Twitter he said: “Thank you to the many people who have sent their kind wishes to me and my family this week. At this difficult time, I will be stepping aside from my current consultancy work to focus on my family and suicide prevention.”

Paterson strenuously denied breaking lobbying rules, insisting that he was the victim of an unjust process. He has claimed that the investigation contributed to his wife Rose’s decision to take her own life in June last year.

Labour said his case proved the return of “Tory sleaze”, comparing conduct under Boris Johnson’s government to the scandals that John Major presided over in the 1990s.

Between November 2016 and July 2018, Paterson lobbied officials on behalf of Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods. The standards commissioner’s investigation found that he had failed to identify himself as a paid consultant on four occasions and that he misused his parliamentary office for business meetings with clients. He was also found to have used parliamentary notepaper improperly by sending letters relating to his private business interests.

He has maintained that he was making the authorities aware of serious public health issues the firms had discovered. On Thursday, Paterson announced that he was giving up his North Shropshire seat because he was “unable to clear my name under the current system”.

Ministers are still pressing ahead with a plan to overhaul the standards system to give MPs a right of appeal. MPs found guilty of misconduct would have the right to challenge the decision before an expert panel including a High Court judge before any sanctions could be imposed.

Despite Labour’s opposition to the plan the party is likely to co-operate to bring in the new system.

Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and the head of the standards committee, has called on Rees-Mogg to quit. He told the i newspaper: “I think the leader of the House’s position has become untenable. He has created a crisis for parliament by standing out and talking for 45 minutes in favour of a motion that was the direct, polar opposite of the rule of law.”

Sir Charles Walker, a senior Tory MP, told Times Radio that it was “not a great week for the Conservative Party and a bad a week for politics” after the Paterson row. He said: “[It was[ difficult to find many colleagues in the tea room who were enthusiastic about what they were about to be asked to do. And I don’t think you want to prevail on the goodwill of colleagues too often.”

Asked if Johnson wasn’t getting good advice, Walker said: “I think he’s very busy. Look, he’s at Cop26. I think you’ve got to find time in your diary to be able to weigh up that advice. Sometimes you need space to reflect on things and think and think them through.”

Johnson’s official spokesman has refused to rule out Paterson being given a peerage. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, said this would be “grotesque and deeply offensive”.

Speaking to journalists at Cop26, Scotland’s first minister — who called the attempts to save Paterson from suspension “classic corruption” — said: “It would be grotesque and deeply offensive that somebody who had been found to breach standards by an independent process of investigation, who ended up resigning from the Commons albeit through a messy process, ended up being put back into politics through the House of Lords.

“But I say that as someone who is opposed to unelected peers sitting in the House of Lords.”