THE MP for Torridge and West Devon has been advised to apologise to the House of Commons after the late registration of hundreds of thousands of pounds of outside earnings.

Conservative MP Geoffrey Cox, in writing to the Registrar last September, said he offered ‘no excuse for my failure to give this matter the due attention it deserves and requires’, and set out steps and procedures he had put in place to ‘ensure this situation does not arise again’.

He also apologised in writing, and stood down from the Committee on Standards and the Committee of Privileges, adding: “I no longer believe it is appropriate for me to adjudicate on such matters, having fallen short of the standards the House expects and demands.”

The eleven payments concerned were received for legal services during a period of over seven months from January to early August 2015, and totalled more than £400,000.

The rules of the House state that these payments should have been registered within 28 days of receipt.

The standards committee in its report said it accepted Mr Cox ‘had no intention to hide these payments’.

It added: “The number of payments and the sums involved in the late registration are significant and Mr Cox was in a position which should have ensured that he was more familiar with the rules and the relevant principles of public life in this area than other Members might be.”

In conclusion, the committee recommend that Mr Cox make an apology to the House for his failure to register payments in a ‘timely fashion’.

Mr Cox apologised in the House of Commons last Thursday. He said: “In 2009, the House resolved that hon members should register all outside earnings within 28 days of their receipt, whether connected with their parliamentary duties or not.

“For a prolonged period last year, I very much regret that I failed to comply with that rule in respect of my professional earnings as a barrister.

“The House has a right to expect of its members, particularly those on the Standards Committee, as I was, that they will uphold its rules to the fullest extent. For that reason, I have stepped down from the Standards Committee, and I hope that the House will accept my sincere and full-hearted apology for my failure to observe this important rule.”