MPs suspended for bullying can now face ‘recall’ but it won’t be retrospective

The House of Commons this afternoon approved plans under which MPs who are suspended from the Commons for sexual harassment or bullying, can now be removed by a recall petition.

If signed by 10% of electors in the relevant local constituency, a recall position is a mechanism that formally leads to a by-election being held in the constituency concerned.

Recall petitions were introduced in response to the 2010 MPs Expenses Scandal and were previously only possible when an MP had been imprisoned and all appeals had been exhausted; if an MP was suspended from the House of Commons for over 10 days following a recommendation of the Committee of Standards; or if an MP was convicted of making a false Parliamentary allowance claim.

To date the recall mechanism has been used to initiate two separate by-elections in Peterborough and Brecon and Radnorshire, both in 2019.  An early recall petition in North Antrim in 2018 failed to attract the required number of signatures, and as such never materialised into a by-election.

Today’s move follows the case of Delyn MP, Rob Roberts, who in May 2021 was suspended from Parliament for six weeks after Parliament’s Independent Expert Panel found he had sexually harassed a staff member.

Under the existing rules, there was though no method for a recall petition to be initiated in this case.  As such, Mr Roberts who represents the tightly fought marginal constituency of Delyn in North Wales, remains an MP.  Mr Roberts currently sits as an Independent in Parliament having been suspended from the Conservative Party earlier this autumn.

Labour had argued that this afternoon’s rule change should be retrospective, but the party’s amendment was defeated by 297 votes to 213.

Opposing the amendment, Commons Leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg warned that it would create a’ very problematic precedent’ in which a political decision would be taken about an individual case. His Conservative colleague, Sir Edward Leigh, himself a former barrister, further opposed the change, referencing the well established principle that people should be punished according to the law at the time when they committed their offence.