David Laws punishment screws up Clegg’s plans

David Laws has kissed goodbye to any early return to the Cabinet with the damning report by the Committee on Standards and Privileges saying he lied about rent for a room owned by his male partner.

However, the blow is greater for Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, who had been hoping to restore Laws to the Cabinet to bolster the flagging morale of the Lib Dem team.

Laws was one of the authors of the Orange Book, which helped to pave the way for the Clegg modernisation of the Liberal Democrats, and was one of Clegg's most able cutting-edge thinkers in Government.

His suspension for seven days and the report of the committee chaired by Labour MP Kevin Barron has killed any hope of bringing him back to high office at least for a year and possibly longer.

The committee found that not only did Laws break the rules by claiming for a room rented from his gay partner - in breach of a rule adopted by Parliament in 2006 prohibiting claiming expenses for renting from a partner - he claimed expenses from the taxpayer of up to £370-a-month above the market rent.

Laws had paid £99,000 towards the purchase of a house in London by his partner, but still claimed his Somerset house was his main home, which was not true.

"In our view, the breach of the rules in relation to the second property was still more serious," said the committee, "in that Mr Laws had made significant financial contributions to the purchase and upgrading of the property. Such commitments are unusual between landlord and tenant, or even between friends."

Laws paid back £56,592 and it has to be said that some MPs who were queueing up to join a Commons debate later today on the wider expenses scandal were very sympathetic to Laws.

The committee accept he wanted to keep secret his gay relationship with his 'landlord' to protect his private life. It is also claimed that he did not want his mother to know he was gay.

The Daily Telegraph, responsible for breaking the great expenses saga, took the view in a leader today that Laws should be banned until at least the next Parliament from serving in the Cabinet.

But a far more damaging question is being raised about the Laws case. Why, some MPs are now asking, did David Chaytor go to prison while other MPs who fiddled their expenses were let off with no more than a slap on the wrist? The Laws case was not pursued by the police as a criminal offence.

Nor does it seem to matter how much they swindled the taxpayer. Chaytor, a Labour MP at the time, was jailed for 18 months for submitting bogus documents to falsely claim more than £22,000 of taxpayers' money for rent and IT work. Other MPs have got away with far more, playing fast and loose with the rules, but have not been jailed.

MPs are now saying that the law is arbitrary, and unjust. Few now will listen to MPs complaining that it has dealt too harshly with the likes of Chaytor, but there is a case for examining why some got off lightly, and others are doing porridge. ·