Trade minister Conor Burns resigns after ‘intimidating’ member of the public in dispute
Trade minister Conor Burns has resigned after it was found he had abused his position to “intimidate a member of the public” in a dispute concerning his father.
An investigation upheld a complaint that Burns, a long-standing ally of Boris Johnson, used parliamentary stationery to “deal with a purely personal family interest and that Mr Burns was attempting to use parliamentary privilege to secure payment for his father”.
The House of Commons standards committee today recommended the minister be suspended for seven days.
The Bournemouth West MP resigned from his post as trade minister shortly after the committee report was released.
He tweeted: “With deep regret I have decided to resign as minister of state for international trade.
“Boris Johnson will continue to have my wholehearted support from the backbenches.”
The complaint concerns a letter written by Burns to a member of the public on House of Commons paper on 6 February.
The letter was over a loan dispute that Burns’ father was having with a company.
The minister said he was getting in contact on behalf of his father to try and sort the matter.
“Burns stated that his father had made extensive attempts over a period of years to reach a settlement on repayment of that loan,” the committee report read.
The code of conduct for MP’s states that “modest use of stationery…for personal correspondence is
permitted”.
Burns told the standards committee that he believed he “was adhering to the guidance on the limited use of stationery for personal correspondence”.
However, the committee found he was in breach of the code, because he “put personal interest before the public interest by suggesting that he would take advantage of his public office to pursue his father’s financial dispute”.
The report said: “This penalty reflects our view that the abuse of privilege for personal or family gain cannot be viewed as anything but a serious failure to uphold the values and principles of the House of Commons Code of Conduct, and that any member should be aware of this before behaving in the way he did.
“We further recommend that Mr Burns should apologise in writing to the House for his breaches of the Code of Conduct by way of a letter to Mr Speaker, and that he should apologise in writing to the complainant as the injured party.”
Burns was elected as MP for Bournemouth West in the 2010 General Election.
He was previously a parliamentary private secretary to Johnson when he was foreign secretary.