Owen Paterson: Investigation into me by Parliament standards watchdog played a part in my wife's suicide

A prominent Tory MP has claimed that an investigation by Parliament’s standards watchdog contributed to his wife’s suicide after it recommended he be suspended for 30 days for lobbying on behalf of two companies.

Owen Paterson, a former environment secretary, claimed that the probe by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards did not "comply with natural justice" and the manner in which it had been conducted had "undoubtedly played a role" in his wife’s death.

His wife, Rose, 63, was found to have committed suicide by a coroner in September 2020 after she was found dead in a woodland near the couple’s home the previous June.

Mr Paterson’s intervention came as the Parliamentary Committee on Standards on Tuesday recommended that he be suspended for 30 days over an "egregious case of paid advocacy" after investigating his lobbying for two companies for which he was a consultant.

Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, opened the investigation in October 2019 following allegations Mr Paterson had improperly lobbied for the clinical diagnostics company Randox and the meat processor Lynn's Country Foods.

The commissioner found the North Shropshire MP had breached a rule prohibiting paid advocacy in the MPs' Code of Conduct in making three approaches to the Food Standards Agency relating to Randox and the testing of antibiotics in milk in November 2016 and 2017.

He was also found to have breached the rule over making seven approaches to the same agency for Lynn's Country Foods between November 2017 and July 2018, and four approaches to ministers in the Department for International Development relating to Randox and blood testing technology in October 2016 and January 2017.

He breached the Code of Conduct over declarations of interest by failing to declare his role as a paid consultant to Lynn's in four emails to the Food Standards Agency between November 2016 and January 2018.

And he breached the code over use of parliamentary facilities by using his parliamentary office for business meetings with clients on 16 occasions between October 2016 and February 2020 and by sending two letters relating to business interests on House of Commons headed notepaper in October 2016 and January 2017.

After analysing the commissioner's findings, the Committee on Standards recommended he be suspended for 30 days.

Its report said: "The committee found that Mr Paterson's actions were an egregious case of paid advocacy, that he 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 committee, which is made up of seven MPs and seven lay members, said it had been "painfully conscious that Mr Paterson lost his wife in tragic circumstances in June 2020; and we wish to express our deepest sympathy to him for his loss."

It continued: "This last year must have been very distressing for him and we have taken these circumstances fully into account in considering Mr Paterson’s conduct during the period of the investigation".

The committee said it had "striven to ensure that Mr Paterson has had every opportunity to represent himself as fully as possible before the Committee, in person and in writing" and had "extended deadlines at his request and we have accepted his request to be accompanied by his legal advisers and to make a formal opening statement to us".

However, it said that the allegations related to Mr Paterson's action prior to his wife's death and that it was required to "adjudicate, impartially, without fear or favour, and with a sole eye to the rules of the House and the requirements of natural justice".

Mr Paterson said that his approaches had been allowed within the rules for MPs because he had been "acting in the public interest" by raising three issues relating to public health.

These, he said, related to antibiotic residue in supermarket milk, the marketing of a "natural ham" by a foreign food manufacturer that contained a "banned carcinogenic nitrite that is recognised as a significant cause of bowel cancer", and concerns over overseas aid and the the quality of laboratory control systems in some developing countries.

However, in its response, the committee said that with the exception of one meeting on 15 November 2016 with the FSA regarding milk testing, it did not accept that "Mr Paterson's approaches fell within the ‘serious wrong’ exemption."

It added that it "stretches credulity to suggest that fourteen approaches to Ministers and public officials were all attempts to avert a serious wrong rather than to favour Randox and Lynn’s, however much Mr Paterson may have persuaded himself he is in the right.”

Approached for comment, a spokesman for the commissioner said: "The Commissioner does not comment on the conduct of individual MPs outside of the information published on her website and material (either a formal report or a decision letter) published at the end of an investigation."

'Biased process and not fair'

But in an angry statement, Mr Paterson rejected the commissioner's findings, accusing her of making up her mind before she had even spoken to him.

"This is a biased process and not fair," he said. "It offends against the basic standard of procedural fairness that no one should be found guilty until they have had a chance to be heard and to present their evidence, including their witnesses.

“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.

“Rose would ask me despairingly every weekend about the progress of the inquiry, convinced that the investigation would go to any lengths to somehow find me in the wrong. 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. She became convinced that the investigation would destroy my reputation and force me to resign my North Shropshire seat that I have now served for 24 years.

“She would also be a casualty, forced to resign her post as Chairman of Aintree Racecourse and a Steward of the Jockey Club, two roles of which she was rightly enormously proud.”

Mr Paterson went on to accuse the Commissioner of having made her “mind up” about the allegations before she put them to him, that he had been “forbidden to challenge this unfair process” and that his responses to allegations were “seemingly ignored”.

He continued: “I reject completely the findings of the Committee for Parliamentary Standards. The methods of the investigation do not create a just and fair outcome. Most importantly, not one of my 17 witnesses have been interviewed during the course of the investigation despite the passage of 24 months – not by the Commissioner, and not by the Committee.

“These highly reputable and reliable witnesses are the very people who say I am not guilty. What court, what workplace investigation, would ignore such evidence and call its procedures fair?

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

“In my case, I am very clear that I acted properly and within the rules, putting my lifetime experience, my many years as an MP and my service as a Cabinet Minister towards ensuring the public good. I am quite clear that I acted properly, honestly and within the Rules.”