A disgraced Conservative MP will be allowed to rejoin the party on Monday, despite an independent investigation finding that he sexually harassed a junior member of staff.
Rob Roberts, who represents Delyn in north Wales, will end a 12-week suspension from the Conservatives and have his membership restored, the party confirmed. However, he will not have the Tory whip restored in the House of Commons so he will continue to sit as an independent MP in parliament.
Earlier this year Roberts was suspended from parliament for six weeks after he was found by an independent panel to have made “significant” repeated and unwanted sexual advances towards a former member of staff and used “his position as his employer to place him under pressure to accede”.
There had been discussion about whether Roberts could be subject to a potential recall vote, in which voters have the opportunity to force a byelection if their representative is suspended by parliament for a lengthy period of time. However, because Roberts appealed against the initial verdict of the parliamentary commissioner for standards to an external panel, it turned out his punishment was not covered by the recall legislation.
Earlier this month the government closed this loophole for future cases, while voting down a motion from Labour to make the change retrospective.
The House of Commons leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has called on Roberts to do the “honourable” thing and step down as an MP, argued retrospective punishment would go against the principle that there should be no imposition of a sanction “which was not available at the time when a given case was determined”.
The independent report found that Roberts had accepted that “aspects of his behaviour” towards the staff member were “inappropriate,” and had offered to apologise – but he “rejected the categorisation of his conduct as ‘sexual’, preferring the term ‘romantic’”.
Subsequent attempts to persuade the staff member to go for a drink with him “amounted to no more than an attempt to reset their professional working relationship”, the MP claimed.
Roberts was the first Tory MP elected for Delwyn – which includes the towns of Flint and Mostyn – since 1987, winning an unexpected 865-vote majority over the longstanding Labour MP David Hanson at the last general election.
Unless he changes his mind and chooses to step down on his own terms, Roberts will be free to remain as an MP until the next time a national vote is called.
