Wareing: Denies any wrong-doing

Committee Recommends Suspension of MP

In a report, the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said: "We find Mr Wareing's conduct wrong. We recommend that Mr Wareing should make an apology to the House by means of a personal statement and that he thereupon be suspended from the service of the House for one week."

Labour suspended Mr Wareing, the MP for Liverpool West, from holding party office last month following allegations that he accepted payments from a firm run by a Serb-born businessman and failed to declare them. He has denied any wrongdoing.

On Tuesday night, Mr Wareing issued a statement saying he had no difficulty in offering the House an apology. He said he had never intended to circumvent the rules.

Mr Wareing was the chairman in the last Parliament of the British Yugoslav Parliamentary Group. He was criticised in 1995 by his own colleagues for meeting the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

The chairman of the Standards and Privileges committee, Robert Sheldon, commented: "We believe that what is most important is that at the end of this Parliament the perceived reputation of Members of Parliament must be higher than it was at the end of the last Parliament."

The committee is also considering the Downey Report on parliamentary sleaze and will meet again on Thursday to continue its deliberations on the findings against the former Tory MP Neil Hamilton.