Three ex-MPs stripped of their Commons passes for breaching rules preventing former politicians cashing in on access to parliament to make money as lobbyists

Three Labour ex-ministers were today stripped of their Commons passes and reprimanded for breaching rules preventing ex-politicians from cashing in on their privileged access to parliament to make money as lobbyists.

The commissioner for standards, Sir John Lyon, also called for a review of the lobbying rules in particular to look at how former MPs can be prevented from exploiting their contacts and experience from their time in office once they leave.

It follows an undercover sting in which five former Labour ministers, Geoff Hoon, Patricia Hewitt, Stephen Byers, Richard Caborn and Adam Ingram, and the Conservative MP Sir John Butterfill, were filmed discussing consultancy services with a reporter from Channel 4's Dispatches programme claiming to be from a lobbying firm.

Byers described himself as being a bit like a "cab for hire" and Hoon said that he was looking forward to translating his experience into something that "bluntly, makes money".

Today, the committee on standards and privileges backed the commissioner's recommendations to reprimand Hoon, Byers and Caborn, stripping them of their Commons passes for varying periods in one of the most serious collective sanctions ordered against former ministers in recent times.

Stephen Byers, the former transport secretary, was stripped of his pass for two years after the inquiry concluded he had lied when he claimed he could access confidential information in No 10 and that he knew someone in the office of the leader of the opposition "very well". He would have had a tougher sanction had he not shown so much remorse about his actions already in a letter to the house offering his "sincere and unreserved apologies", the report says.

Hoon, the former defence secretary who left parliament at the last election, was told he had committed a "particularly serious" breach of the rules, having claimed to be able to disclose confidential information that he "implied" he was receiving or could access from the Ministry of Defence. He would have charged £3,000 a day for his services. Lyons concluded that Hoon had brought the Commons into disrepute and the committee backed the recommendation to strip him of his parliamentary pass for five years, ordering him to apologise to the Commons in writing.

He has since set up a consultancy with the former head of McDonald's in the UK to advise businesses bidding for contracts outsourced following the spending cuts. Today's report reveal he made an eleventh-hour plea to the committee claiming the evidence was insufficient to back-up the commissioner's conclusion of a "serious" breach of the rules.

Richard Caborn, previously a sports minister, will lose his pass for six months after the committee reported that he sponsored three events in parliament on behalf of outside organisations without declaring his interest.

Hewitt, the former health secretary, Butterfill and Ingram were all cleared of breaching the rules, but told they were "unwise" to arrange meetings with what they understood to be a lobbying company.

The committee on standards and privileges will now conduct a review of the rules governing lobbying. It will focus on what can be done to prevent MPs exploiting their contact sand experience. A committee already vets, and can place restrictions on, the jobs ministers take after they leave office.

The Commons will vote on the reports next week and are extremely unlikely to challenge them. The Commons leader, Sir George Young, said: "I very much hope that report [of the standards and privileges committee] will act as a salutary lesson to anybody thinking of repeating these offences that were made in those cases."