Derek Conway, the MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup then under the Conservative whip, was found to have employed his son, Frederick, as a part-time research assistant in his parliamentary office between 2004 and 2007, with an annual salary of £10,000, despite Frederick being a full-time undergraduate student at Newcastle University. This arrangement was revealed by The Sunday Times on 27 May 2007, in an article which prompted a complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who in turn referred the matter to the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee.

The committee launched an investigation into the matter as a whole, and reported to the House on 28 January 2008. On the same day, Conway apologised on the floor of the Commons, stating that he accepted the report's criticisms "in full". The report's main finding was that there was "no record" of Frederick ever doing any substantive work for Conway, and that the salary he was paid was too high. The committee ordered Conway to repay £13,000 of the money Frederick had been paid, and recommended that Conway should be suspended from the Commons for ten sitting days. These recommendations were approved, in their entirety, by the House of Commons on 31 January 2008.

At the time of Conway's suspension, the Labour MP John Mann announced that he would be making a complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over Conway's employment of his other son, Henry, in a similar capacity to Frederick. Shortly after Conway's suspension and the second allegation being made, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, withdrew the party whip from Conway, effectively leaving him sitting as an Independent MP. Conway subsequently announced that he would not be standing for re-election at the next general election.

In January 2009, a year after the first report, the Committee on Standards and Privileges published a further report, specifically in relation to Conway's employment of his son Henry. The committee found that Henry had been employed immediately prior to Frederick and, similarly, had been studying as a full-time undergraduate at the time of his employment. The committee reported that, like the previous case, there was no "hard evidence" of Henry's employment, but also stated that it would be unfair to conclude that Henry Conway did not undertake sufficient work to fulfil the terms of his contract of employment.

The committee ordered Conway to repay £3,758 in over payments he made to his second son, and to also write a letter of apology to the committee's chairman, Sir George Young. Once again, Conway apologised "without qualification" to the Commons.