Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle today ordered an urgent probe into voting lobby scuffles which plunged Liz Truss’s embattled premiership into new peril.
Sir Lindsay, who has made restoring respect and good conduct in Parliament a key plank of his role, told MPs he had asked the Serjeant at Arms and other officials to investigate allegations surrounding incidents in the Commons on Wednesday night.
In a statement to MPs, he said: "I wish to say something about the reports of behaviour in the division lobbies last night.
I have asked the Serjeant at Arms and other senior officials to investigate the incident and report back to me. I will then update the House.”
Warning MPs of the impact of their actions, he went on: “I remind Members that the behaviour code applies to them as well as to other members of our parliamentary community, and this gives me another opportunity to talk about the kind of House I want to see and I believe that the vast majority of MPs also want to see.
I want this to be a House in which we, while we might have very strong political disagreements, treat each other courteously and with respect, and we should show the same courtesy and respect to those who work with and for us.
To that end I will be meeting with senior party representatives to seek an agreed position that behaviour like that described last night is not acceptable in all circumstances."
Chris Bryant MP's view in full
I have never seen scenes like it in my twenty-one years as an MP. The last time I saw anything like it was in the playground at school when the school bully rounded up his mates to take on a fellow pupil – and he was expelled.
It started because several Tory MPs were unsure how to vote. Earlier in the day they had been told that this was a ‘confidence vote’. In other words, they would be chucked out of the Tory Party if they voted with Labour on the fracking motion.
Then, ten minutes before the vote, the minister Graham Stuart told the House that it wasn’t a confidence vote after all.
In other words, MPs could vote with their conscience on fracking.
But then the same minister cast doubt on what he had just said and claimed it was all above his pay grade.
This left several MPs completely confused and uncertain whether to walk into the lobby with the government or not.
More than a dozen Tory MPs, including several whips and two Cabinet ministers, surrounded one of the possible rebels. It was very intimidating.
They squared up to him. They loomed over him. They shouted at him and gesticulated. And they kettled him into the lobby.
A few colleagues objected. One who was up close to it all told me she found it ‘terrifying’. Another said, ‘I had no idea this was the way Tories treat one another.’ A Tory told me ‘it made me feel sick.’
I’m not naïve. I’ve been around for a while and I know whips do their best to persuade colleagues to vote the right way.
Party discipline matters, especially in government. It’s the only way you get coherent government. But whips should rely on the force of reason, not intimidation.
I’ve heard Tories say that this was just a ‘full and frank’ discussion. That’s code for aggressive bullying.
It’s another excuse for bad behaviour. Just imagine if a dozen members of staff, including the vice-president of a company, gathered round a colleague like that. They’d be quite rightly out on their ear and face an employment tribunal.
If MPs do this to one another, how do they behave towards their staff?
We’ve been trying to change the culture in parliament. Every member of staff should be safe from bullying and sexual harassment. We encourage people to call out bullying wherever they see it.
MPs have been suspended for bullying their staff. Last night’s behaviour completely undermines that attempt to change things for the better – and sends a terrible message to the country. It makes intimidation seem normal.
The truth is that discipline has completely collapsed in the Tory Party.
It feels as if we haven’t had a functioning government for at least nine months as ministers lurch from one scandal to another like a shopping trolley with wonky wheels.
One MP told me last night that his whip can go whistle. ‘He didn’t support the last Tory PM, or the one before that, so why on earth should I put myself on the line for this one?’ he said.
The Tory Party is now a completely ungovernable rabble. Tory MPs heard the Chief Whip storm off saying she was no longer chief whip – but now she has ‘un-resigned’.
Truss's office even sent out a message at 1.33 am saying that this was a confidence vote after all.
It’s a car crash, with serious implications for us all. The Tories crashed the economy and now they’re engaged in endless internal fisticuffs. They need to go – and we need a general election.
