What the Sun had to say on Conway and Cameron's eventual follow up action.

MP suspended over pay for son



DAVID Cameron has suspended the veteran Tory MP at the centre of an expenses scam.

The Tory leader finally caved in and withdrew the party whip from veteran backbencher Derek Conway for paying thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ cash to his sons.

A damning report yesterday called for Mr Conway to be suspended from the Commons for 10 days over the scandal.

The 54-year-old was slammed by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog for paying his son Freddie nearly £50,000 for work as a parliamentary assistant - even though he was at university in Newcastle at the time.

Despite the devastating revelations, Mr Cameron initially refused to suspend the Old Bexley and Sidcup MP from the parliamentary Tory party.

But pressure mounted this morning after it emerged he had paid up to £35,000 to his other son Henry while he was a student too.

Hours later, the Liberal Democrats formally referred the case to the police.

Shortly before 1pm today, Mr Cameron finally caved in and announced that he was suspending Mr Conway from the Parliamentary party.

The Tory leader said he had personally decided to withdraw the whip after asking chief whip Patrick McLoughlin to speak to Mr Conway this morning.

In a statement, Mr Cameron said: “The usual procedure in these cases is to leave the punishment to the House of Commons authorities. However, having asked the Chief Whip to speak again to Mr Conway and having personally reflected overnight, I have decided to withdraw the Conservative whip from Mr Conway.”

Student Freddie had an £11,773-a-year salary as a “researcher” plus bonuses worth about £10,000 — but there was no evidence he had done any work.

The Standards Committee found the teenager “had little or no contact with his father’s office”.

It said of the arrangement: “At worst, it was a serious diversion of public funds.”

It wants Mr Conway suspended from the Chamber for ten days.

He will also have to repay up to £13,000.

The Old Bexley and Sidcup MP apologised to the Commons, saying: “I have accepted the criticisms in full.”

The payments were revealed only through leaked Commons records.