Former minister declares parliamentary career over after MPs recommend his suspension from Commons for 12 months
Denis MacShane, the former Europe minister, has been expelled from the Labour party after a cross-party committee of MPs recommended that he should be suspended from the House of Commons for 12 months after submitting false invoices.
A byelection is expected to be held in MacShane's Rotherham constituency after he declared that his parliamentary career was over in the wake of damning findings by the House of Commons standards and privileges committee.
Kevin Barron, the Labour chair of the cross-party committee, described the findings against MacShane as the "gravest case which has come to the committee for adjudication".
The committee recommended that MacShane should be suspended from the Commons for 12 months, with loss of pay and pension rights for the period, after ruling that he had submitted "false invoices" to pay for official trips to other EU countries. He also allowed interns to keep laptops, paid for by parliament, when their internships came to an end.
A Labour spokesman signalled that MacShane would be expected to resign his seat altogether, triggering a byelection. The spokesman said: "These are very serious findings concerning Denis MacShane and we accept his statement this morning that his career as a Labour MP is effectively over. In the light of the report's recommendations to the house, the Labour party has suspended Denis MacShane with immediate effect, pending a full NEC [National Executive Committee] inquiry. We will be talking to Denis MacShane about his future and the best course of action for him and for his constituency."
MacShane expressed regret for his conduct but criticised Michael Barnbrook, the former BNP member who launched the complaint against him. In a statement MacShane said: "I am shocked and saddened that the BNP has won its three-year campaign to destroy my political career as a Labour MP despite a full police investigation which decided not to proceed after investigations and interviews. I am glad the committee notes that there is no question of personal gain.
"Clearly I deeply regret that the way I chose to be reimbursed for costs related to my work in Europe and in combating antisemitism, including being the prime minister's personal envoy, has been judged so harshly.
"I remain committed to work for progressive values, for Britain playing a full part in Europe, and for combating antisemitism even though I can no longer undertake this work as a Labour MP. I am consulting family and friends as I consider my position and study the full implications of the report. I am obviously desperately sorry for any embarrassment I have caused my beloved Labour party and its leader, Ed Miliband, whom I greatly admire."
The committee was highly critical of the way in which MacShane submitted invoices through the European Policy Institute, which he established, to fund official trips to other EU countries. He claimed £12,900 between 2004-09 for what he described as "European travel, buying books and papers, work related to my parliamentary duties there".
The committee said: "The real mischief of Mr MacShane's actions was that the method he adopted of submitting false invoices, as the commissioner said, bypassed the checks and controls the house had instituted in a way which enabled Mr MacShane to spend public money as he thought fit."
The committee was also critical of his use of laptops. "We do not believe that any reasonable member would have considered it proper to have allowed interns to take laptops provided by the public purse away with them at the end of their internship," it said.
MacShane said he "unreservedly" accepted the findings of the parliamentary standards commissioner, John Lyon. But he blamed personal tragedy for his behaviour.
In a letter to the committee on 26 October, he wrote: "How did this foolish and wrong behaviour come about? I was as Mr Lyon generously recognises under great pressure in this period. I had lost a daughter in a sky-diving accident in Australia, gone through a wrenching divorce and held the hand of my first daughter's mother, Carol Barnes, as she lay dying from a stroke for a week in 2008.
"To overcome these griefs I did what many do and buried myself in work. I accepted extra parliamentary delegation work from the Labour party. I chaired the all-party commission on inquiry into antisemitism which was hailed as a model of its kind and changed government policy. I wrote two books and hundreds of articles, some of them translated, but claimed under the wrong heading as Mr Lyon rightly notes. Foolishly and wrongly I paid no attention to the administration of my expenses claims."
