Tory MP forced to declare bankruptcy assistance

A Conservative MP has been ordered to declare in the Register of Members' Interests the help given to him by banks to stave off potential bankruptcy and save his career as an MP.

The Commons committee on standards and privileges backed a report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Gordon Downey, that Roy Thomason, MP for Bromsgrove, had received a substantial declarable benefit from banks which was not normally available to members of the public in that the banks agreed to defer any bankruptcy proceedings. Evidence to the report suggested that senior Conservatives, including the former Cabinet minister Lord Younger, met the MP's creditors to help prevent bankruptcy and to stop a by-election being called. Mr Thomason, said in the report to have liabilities of pounds 6m, has now agreed to register the interest but claimed it was a "technical" complaint.

In a separate report Sir Gordon said the Labour front bencher Mo Mowlam broke the "spirit" of the rules by not declaring a pounds 21,000 payment by Mirror Group Newspapers for a research assistant. He said the Northern Ireland spokeswoman had since offered her apologies to the House. Michael Streeter