Investigation and withdrawal of whip
Conway employed his son Freddie as a part-time researcher, while Freddie was on a full-time degree course at the University of Newcastle. Conway paid his son the part-time equivalent of a £25,970 salary, amounting to a sum in excess of £40,000 over three years, including pension contributions.
Conway was reported to the Committee on Standards and Privileges by former Metropolitan Police Inspector Michael Barnbrook, who had stood against him in the 2005 general election as a UKIP candidate. After an investigation, in January 2008 the Committee found there was "no record" of what work Freddie had done, and said the £1,000-plus a month he was paid was too high. They recommended that the House order him to repay a sum of £13,000 and that he be suspended for 10 sitting days. However, in a subsequent interview with the Mail on Sunday, Derek Conway disputed the allegation that Freddie Conway had rarely travelled from Newcastle to Westminster, instead stating that Freddie "would go up and down like a fiddler's elbow".
In light of the evidence, Conservative party leader David Cameron decided to withdraw the Conservative Party whip, rendering Conway free of any Parliamentary Conservative constraints, effectively leaving him as an independent MP.
Conway announced on 30 January 2008 that he would not fight the next general election, stating: "I have concluded that it's now time to step down." He declared that he did not wish his "personal circumstances to be a distraction" from David Cameron's leadership.
The ruling did not involve the elder son, Henry Conway, as he was not the subject of the original complaint, but John Lyon, who had recently taken on the post of Parliamentary commissioner for standards, received complaints about similar payments to Henry while he was also a student and doing the "job" which Freddie took over. Lyon decided a complaint from Duncan Borrowman merited investigation.
On 29 January 2009, almost a year after the previous report, a further report was published by the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee into the employment of Mr Conway's elder son Henry. There was some evidence of Henry working for his salary, but his father was ordered to pay back £3,758 which had been overpaid and to write a letter of apology to the chairman of the committee.
On 2 February 2009, Conway apologised in the House of Commons. Conway told the Commons he accepted "without any reservation" that he had breached the rules of the House. He withdrew comments made previously in which he accused Labour of using his story to deflect attention from the row over money paid to peers.
In May 2009 as part of its Disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament, the Sunday Telegraph revealed that Conway had claimed the Second Home Allowance on a house in Northumberland 330 miles from his constituency.
