Labour MP Ian Lavery has been cleared by the parliamentary watchdog over allegations he failed to register benefits received from his previous union employer.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards refused to uphold claims by Tory MP Paul Scully that Mr Lavery should have published redundancy payments and the terms of a mortgage on his property.

But the probe did find two instances where the shadow Cabinet Office minister breached the MPs’ code of conduct by failing to declare a relevant interest.

Mr Lavery has agreed to make an apology to the House of Commons for the breaches, which the commissioner said would be an “appropriate outcome” following the investigation.

The Labour frontbencher was general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) for the Northumberland area from 1992 until 2010, when he stood down and was elected MP for Wansbeck.

According to documents seen by BBC Newsnight last year, Mr Lavery received a £72,500 mortgage in 1994 from the union's benevolent fund, repayable at less than half the market interest rate.

He also allegedly received around £140,000 in redundancy payments from the union.

The Standards commissioner found that Parliament’s rules in 2010 had not been “sufficiently explicit” for Mr Lavery’s failure to register the redundancy payments to constitute a breach.

Mr Lavery received redundancy payments in instalments until May 2013.

Further, the probe found that Mr Lavery’s mortgage had terminated three years before he became an MP so it was not considered a registrable benefit.

But elsewhere in the investigation, the commissioner considered whether Mr Lavery should have noted in the Register of Members’ Interests that the NUM had held a 15% of share in his property until May 2013.

The commissioner concluded that under the circumstances it was a registrable benefit under the Miscellaneous Category.

It also found that Mr Lavery should have declared a relevant interest when tabling a Written Question in March 2013 about the future of the deep-mine industry.

“Mr Lavery has acknowledged his two breaches of the rules and of the Code of Conduct, and he has agreed to make an apology to the House for them,” the commissioner wrote.

“Subject to him doing so, I consider that to be an appropriate outcome and have concluded my inquiry under the rectification procedure.”

Mr Lavery denied any wrongdoing when the allegations surfaced in April 2016.