A few years ago, I met up for dinner with a woman who had just become a member of the House of Commons. She was shaken. Her face blanched.
My acquaintance had just received her first security training. There was a panic device for her to carry at all times, with an SOS button to flag her location. There were maximum-security locks and alarm systems for her home and constituency office. Introductions to the police, who would keep tabs on her whereabouts. Protocols to minimise the risk, and the deadliness, of an attack by one of her constituents should she enter their home to help them. MPs – and in particular female MPs – are warned against meeting any constituent alone.
The risks to MPs are back in the news, following the conviction of a man for harassing the Labour MP Stella Creasy. Creasy was repeatedly targeted by a man as part of an escalating campaign of obsession; his harassment included reporting her to social services on the grounds that her feminism made her an unfit mother.
The story is a perfect storm of the UK’s institutional crises, from the police’s failure in the face of misogyny (the police originally declined to impose criminal sanctions, reportedly on the grounds that the man was “entitled to his views”), to the collapse of the prison system (the offender’s 14-week prison sentence will be suspended because of the crisis of overcrowding in prisons). District Judge Tan Ikram, who heard the case, issued a warning that cases like this are putting off talented people from entering public life.
Male MPs are also at risk. In 2021, David Amess was stabbed to death at a constituency surgery by a man with sympathies towards Islamic State. The risks are sometimes different. New female MPs and their staff arrive at the Parliamentary Estate to training on how to triage the rape threats routinely sent in by email. Glance at such an inbox, and the impact of societal misogyny is plain to see. After Amess, however, the risk of murder hangs over every MP.
What’s the answer? MPs like Creasy are fed up with being told to take ever more responsibility for their own security, unless the factors radicalising the perpetrators are tackled too. There’s a difference between overloading MPs with security training and offering them targeted support. Creasy has complained that “no one in parliamentary leadership has offered any support to me or my family”; further to this, I understand that Creasy had to appeal directly for officers from the Parliamentary Security Team to accompany her to the trial of the man who harassed her.
Many of Creasy’s colleagues, however, point the finger at the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), the deeply unpopular finance body set up in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal. Keeping safe is expensive. For high-profile women travelling on their own, it often means taking a taxi home from Parliament, or to and from train stations. It might mean purchasing a second train ticket for someone to accompany you. It might mean staying in a hotel in a well-lit area.
If you’re an MP and expect to stay late at a constituency event or a vote, you need to ask Ipsa to approve an expenses claim in advance, or face a lengthy reclaims process. Either way, the expense will be logged and declared to constituents. In recent years, I’ve heard regular stories about MPs – particularly female MPs – compromising on their own safety rather than taking out an expense claim they don’t feel their constituents will understand. Ipsa’s delays and inefficiency have become notorious. As a marker of bureaucratic bloat, it is surely absurd that Ipsa currently employs at least five people on higher salaries than the MPs they regulate.
The current crisis seems to be coming to a head, with the rise of Gaza-related protests outside MPs’ homes. On 20 November, the Speaker announced that he had “agreed with Ipsa to relax rules so that MPs could use taxis more frequently, “considering the current heightened community tensions, significant increase in protest activity, and spike in abusive and threatening behaviour towards members”.
Crucially, he announced that “given the security implications”, records of these taxi expenses will not be published. I understand that this was the result of an almighty showdown.
The expenses scandal of 2009 has deep scars on British public life. This is one of them. Our myth that all MPs are on the take; our assumption of bad faith in the heart of anyone who enters public life – these are folk legends rooted in that political moment.
For once, it’s not the MPs who are the problem. It’s us: the press and public. As a bare minimum, we might acknowledge our MPs are human, and let them travel round the country unmolested. If we can’t even do that – the least we can do is let them take a taxi.