A minister has been photographed campaigning with the former Conservative MP Peter Bone, who was suspended from parliament last week after an investigation found that he had engaged in bullying and sexual misconduct.
Tom Pursglove, a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, was photographed by the Sunday Mirror canvassing in Northamptonshire with Bone two days after his sanction was ratified by MPs.
Bone’s suspension was approved without a vote after a watchdog found he had harassed and bullied a staff member and exposed his genitals near their face.
Approached by the newspaper for comment, the Tory minister refused to say whether it was appropriate for him to be canvassing with a suspended MP. Bone reportedly told the Mirror: “I’d love to talk to you, but we’re out canvassing. Have a nice day.”
The science secretary, Michelle Donelan, became the second cabinet minister, after the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to insist there was no wider cultural problem within the Conservative party after Crispin Blunt became the eighth Conservative MP during this parliament to lose the whip over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Blunt, a former justice minister and the MP for Reigate, was arrested by police on Wednesday on suspicion of rape and possession of drugs, before being bailed. He said in a statement that he expected to be cleared and made reference to an allegation of “extortion” that he had previously reported to police.
Asked about the number of MPs who had lost the whip because of parliament’s culture, Donelan said: “This is a small number but an unacceptable number and it should not be tolerated. The culture I have experienced in the Commons is not one that facilitates or encourages this type of behaviour.”
Blunt’s suspension follows a string of unrelated cases in which Tory MPs have lost the whip over allegations of sexual misconduct, including Julian Knight, Chris Pincher, David Warburton, Rob Roberts, Neil Parish and Imran Ahmad Khan.
Boris Johnson’s deputy chief whip, Pincher, stepped down as an MP after getting an eight-week suspension from parliament following an investigation that found he had groped two men at a private members’ club in 2022. Parliament’s independent expert panel (IEP) upheld counts of bullying and sexual misconduct against him relating to a staff member.
The panel found that Bone had “verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated” an employee and “repeatedly physically struck and threw things” at him.
As well as being found to have indecently exposed himself, the MP also imposed an “unwanted and humiliating ritual” on the man by forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap when the politician was unhappy with his work, the investigation found.
A recall petition, due to open next month, will trigger a byelection if signed by 10% of voters in his Wellingborough constituency.
The Conservative party declined to comment.
The complainant at the centre of the case has told the BBC it was a “horrid, brutal, dark experience that left me a broken shell of the young man I once was”.
Labour has urged Bone to stand down immediately and spare his constituencies the recall process.
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has conceded that a byelection in the seat, which Bone won with a 18,500 majority in 2019, would be “difficult” for the Tories.
