Former minister Keith Vaz, who was suspended from Parliament for trying to block sleaze inquiries, has insisted that only radical changes can bring fairness to the way political complaints are handled.

Keith Vaz told the Committee for Standards in Public Life that the process for investigating complaints about the way MPs have behaved is "flawed and arbitrary".

The Leicester East MP called for an independent tribunal to be set up to investigate conduct, perhaps headed by a judge and involving people from outside Parliament, to decide at the start whether there is a case to answer.

The system of self regulation can only work if the process is radically altered to provide certainty and fairness to all

Keith Vaz Former minister

Mr Vaz was banned from the Commons for a month this year after being accused of contempt for Parliament over the way he treated former standards watchdog Elizabeth Filkin's inquiries.

On Tuesday, he continued to insist he had co-operated with Ms Filkin and suggested she had conducted "fishing expeditions" into his affairs.

The MP was giving evidence to an inquiry looking at whether the self-regulation system for dealing with complaints should be changed or scrapped.

'Patchy and piecemeal'

That investigation comes after the controversy over the departure of Ms Filkin, who claimed she had been the victim of a "whispering campaign".

Mr Vaz said the current system was "patchy and piecemeal" because it had been put together as Parliament tried hastily to meet public concern.

"There can be changes to the system that make self-regulation work," said Mr Vaz.

Vaz insists he did co-operate with Filkin

"What's happened is that the commissioner has become a prosecutor."

While there was nothing wrong with that, if it was to happen there needed to be an independent body to assess evidence, he argued.

Investigator and judge?

Mr Vaz said the commissioner should concentrate on receiving complaints and putting together evidence.

"The role as it stands provides powers to act as investigator, judge, sole interpreter of the rules governing procedure as well as the role of commissioner itself."

Mr Vaz claimed the current system left MPs open to complaints from people who had a "grudge" against them.

Michael Martin was accused of attacking Filkin's independence

"A study of the letters of complaint have shown them to be vague and unsubstantiated," he continued.

"However, such groundless accusations have been sufficient to license an open-ended, exploratory investigation into all other matters totally unconnected with the original complaint."

Those abusing the system to discredit people should be dealt with "robustly", with complainants made to apologise for false allegations.

'Fishing expeditions'

MPs were criticised for being uncooperative if they asked "a question about a process which does not exist".

He gave the example of when an anonymous complaint was sent to Ms Filkin with the names of 50 prominent British Asians.

She had then written to each of them asking whether they had made donations to him or whether they knew him, said Mr Vaz.

'Rules needed'

Clear and transparent rules were needed so those facing inquiries knew exactly what they were alleged to have done wrong.

"In some cases, bizarrely, members are not told until after reports have been concluded, what the charges against them are," said Mr Vaz.

The MP also pressed for proper guidelines about how the penalties or "sentences" should be handed down if MPs were found to have broken their code of conduct.

Otherwise, the Commons standards and privileges committee could be accused of treating ministers and former ministers differently from other MPs.

Last month, Ms Filkin told the committee's inquiry that some witnesses were left very frightened by the "bullying" tactics adopted by some MPs.

Most MPs had co-operated with her inquiries but some had resorted to "backstabbing", she added.