Chair of the Commons Standards Committee Chris Bryant has had to refer himself for a Standards Committee investigation after failing to declare a holiday two years ago. The correspondence shows the Standards Commissioner began the inquiry after Bryant alerted him to the error in his register of interests; regarding an overseas visit to Poland in August 2019, arranged and paid for the British Council. Whoops…

The Commissioner finds that Bryant breached paragraph 14 of the members’ code of conduct. A usually fastidious Bryant wrote to “apologise profusely for the delay… for which I have no excuse” and says he is “determined that this lapse will be my last”. Given his recent apology for swearing at Sir Lindsay, MPs may begin wondering whether Bryant is an appropriate chair for the Standards Committee…