DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr has been officially suspended from the Commons for a record 30 days for “serious misconduct” - and voters could now boot him out of office.
MPs formally backed the extraordinary penalty today after a damning report on two luxury trips the MP made with his family to Sri Lanka - paid for by the country’s government.
A damning watchdog report last week found Mr Paisley failed to register the trips, both in 2013, within 28 days and later engaged in “paid advocacy” in a 2014 letter to the Prime Minister.
“We have concluded that Mr Paisley’s actions were of a nature to bring the House of Commons into disrepute,” the Commons Standards Committee declared.
“We conclude that Mr Paisley has committed serious misconduct.”
The suspension of 30 sitting days is the longest since records began in 1949.
It will begin on September 4 which means it is set to last until mid-November - depriving Theresa May of a crucial Leave vote on her final Brexit deal.
The suspension will also trigger a process that could see the MP booted out of office.
Under a law passed in 2015, any MP suspended for more than 10 sitting days automatically triggers a “recall petition” that their constituents can sign.
If at least 10% of local voters sign the petition within six weeks, Mr Paisley will be booted out of office and a by-election will be held in his North Antrim seat.
The probe into Mr Paisley, the son of the late firebrand unionist of the same name, was triggered by an investigation in the Daily Telegraph last year.
Paisley recommended himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, which itself triggered the ruling by the Standards Committee.
The report found Mr Paisley visited Sri Lanka twice with his family, in March to April 2013 and in July 2013.
But he failed to register the visits within 28 days. Then, on 19 March 2014, the MP wrote to then-Prime Minister David Cameron with other MPs expressing “alarm” at a proposed UN resolution on Sri Lanka.
The UN resolution had proposed “an international investigation” into alleged human rights violations in the country.
But,Paisley’s letter opposed the resolution noting “with alarm the decision by HM Government to internationalise the internal affairs of Sri Lanka”.
In this letter Mr Paisley did not declare the financial benefits he and his family had received from the Sri Lankan government, today’s report said. Paisley argued he had felt a declaration was not necessary because “sufficient time had elapsed” since the visits and because the Prime Minister was aware of his interest in Sri Lanka.
Paisley apologised immediately for his failure to register the hospitality, but there were also “aggravating factors”, MPs said.
The report declared: “Mr Paisley’s failure to register the hospitality he received from the Sri Lankan government is made more serious by the scale of that hospitality. While he has disputed the Daily Telegraph’s claim that the value was £100,000, by his own calculation it amounted to over £50,000 - and may have been significantly more than that.
“This massively exceeded the threshold for registration, which at that time was £660.”
The report said Mr Paisley later promptly registered a third visit to Sri Lanka - showing he was “well aware” of the need to do so.
The penalty over undeclared visits to Sri Lanka is the longest since records began in 1949 - and will trigger a process for voters to boot him out of office- Mirror.co.uk