THE amendment which saved North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson from a 30-day ban from Parliament which will be watered down after an intervention by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The controversial plans to overhaul the disciplinary process for MPs and review Mr Paterson's alleged breach of lobbying rules were passed as part of the Andrea Leadsom amendment calling for changes to the Standards Commission.

However, the government has acted after widespread outrage across the political divide with Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg stating he would seek “cross-party” changes to the system after other opposition parties refused to take part in a “corrupt committee”.

And he suggested any changes may not “apply retrospectively” after the Government came under intense criticism for blocking Mr Paterson’s immediate suspension.

Mr Rees-Mogg’s announcement to MPs came as an ethics adviser to the Prime Minister described Wednesday’s vote as a “very serious and damaging moment for Parliament”.

Lord Evans, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said plans for a Tory-led review into the disciplinary process for MPs as being “deeply at odds with the best traditions of British democracy”.

Mr Rees-Mogg recognised that standards must be reformed on a cross-party basis as he acknowledged “that is clearly not the case” with the Government’s proposals.

“While there is a very strong feeling on both sides of the House that there is a need for an appeals process, there is equally a strong feeling that this should not be based on a single case or apply retrospectively,” Mr Rees-Mogg said.

“I fear last night’s debate conflated an individual case with the general concern. This link needs to be broken.

“Therefore I and others will be looking to work on a cross-party basis to achieve improvements in our system for future cases.

"We will bring forward more detailed proposals once there have been cross-party discussions.”