Conway was out of the Commons until the
general election, 2001 when he was elected as the member of parliament for the south London seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup, previously held by the former
Prime Minister and
Father of the House of Commons,
Edward Heath. Conway defended Heath against accusations of
homosexual behaviour. He retained the seat with a majority of 3,345 in
2005. From his re-election he was a member of the
Defence Select Committee. He is a
Eurosceptic (even voting against the
Single European Act that had the backing of
Margaret Thatcher's government), and supports the return of
capital punishment.
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. 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. ==After parliament==