A Commons committee has backed an easing of the rules governing the financial interests of MPs.

The Commons committee on standards and privileges, which is responsible for punishing those found guilty of breaching the House's rules, said regulations restricting MPs from speaking out on topics where they have an interest should be relaxed.

And the MPs backed a new procedure for correcting minor or inadvertent mistakes, which would see no written report by the parliamentary standards commissioner and therefore no response from the standards committee.

The committee said there should be a new threshold of one per cent of the parliamentary salary, currently around £550, below which interests do not need to be registered.

The MPs said that "there is a danger that interests in the register which are of substance will be obscured by the proliferation of relatively insignificant benefits".

The report also backed an overhaul in the guidelines on paid advocacy by MPs.

Rather than preventing MPs speaking on matters which confer a benefit on a body in which they have a pecuniary interest, the committee said the advocacy ban should only apply when it would "confer benefit exclusively upon a body (or individual) outside parliament".

MPs would also be permitted to pursue constituency interests irrespective of any interest except when they have a financial relationship with a company based in the constituency, in which case the "exclusive benefit" rule applies, or when the member is an adviser to a trade association and should therefore "avoid using a constituency interest as the means by which to raise any matter which the member would otherwise be unable to pursue".

"If our recommendation is agreed to, we would regard it as a very serious breach of the rules of the House if a member failed to register or declare an interest which was relevant to a proceeding he had initiated," says the report.