Westminster needs better candidate vetting to make parliament safer, senior Tory MP says

The women and equalities committee chair also discussed the scale of sexual harassment in parliament.

Westminster needs better candidate vetting to make parliament safer, a senior Tory MP has claimed.

Caroline Nokes, who chairs the women and equalities committee, claimed the current processes don’t adequately gauge people’s character, and also fail to take into account any concerns raised by external figures.

Speaking to The Scotsman, Ms Nokes revealed she’d flagged concerns with the party before, only to be told they needed a formal complaint to investigate.

Caroline Nokes discussed the toxic culture in Westminster.

Discussing the current processes, the Romsey and Southampton North MP suggested they were not looking for the right things.

She said: "The stark reality is, whenever you have a snap election, some of those processes get hurried, and you then end up months later discovering the weird comments on Twitter individuals may have made, you discover some of the backstories that if someone had been able to delve into in more detail, it would have flagged concerns.

"I used to say the candidate selection process was assessing people’s ability to run 100 metres, when you actually want them to run a marathon, but now I’m not convinced it’s even the same damn sport.

“The reality is you will be judged on your ability to tackle your MPs in tray, you will be judged on your ability to put a coherent argument on something you know nothing about, and your ability to hold your own in debate.

"All of those are important, but much of the work we do is not far off social work. In the case of one surgery morning, you might do a housing case, a pothole, someone coming with an immigration case, then with no warning have someone come with a horrendous tale of child sex abuse.

"None of the selection processes I went through prepared me. I do wonder at what point there should be much more intensive training on what you’re actually going to expect”.

Ms Nokes also revealed she had never had a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, and there was no requirement for it to work in Westminster.

She said: "There’s been no digging around in the background of those people that might have flagged up concerns before they arrived.

“I also think there’s a really huge problem with the thresholds, the bars at which people judge things are acceptable.

When I’ve flagged concerns about people on the candidates list, and I’ve done that, I’ve been asked has the complainant gone to the police.

"The answer to that is invariably no. The answer is the complainant has gone virtually nowhere, but come to me saying I’ve got concerns about X, I don’t think they should be on the candidates list, but if there’s no formal complaint to the party, there’s no real process.

"They’ve done something below the bar of criminal behaviour, they’ve not touched anybody inappropriately, but have made comments that are sexist or suggestive in nature. I invariably go to the party and say, somebody has come to me with this concern, what do they do next, and the response I’ve had in more than one case is, ‘did they go the police?’.

"They’ve said we need to have a formal complaint from the complainant”.

The senior Tory MP also discussed why bad behaviour was so rife in parliament, with a string of MPs are suspended or under investigation over claims of sexually inappropriate behaviour.She explained: “You have a gender imbalance, you have a power imbalance, you have a lot of people who have striven in some cases for decades to get here, and getting here is a really special thing, but in order to get here you have achieved something, and with that comes a level of deference from others, a level of entitlement in yourself which is singularly unattractive and horrible.

“The minute you get here people start holding doors for you and calling you m’arm and sir, and that can have a massive impact on individuals who think they are special for being here.

“This doesn’t excuse it at all, but goes some way to explain it, but the hours are long, the stresses are high, people are cooped up in really close proximity with their staff, with their colleagues, with political activists, with journalists, with members of the House of Lords and their staff. It creates a very odd and intense atmosphere, and when you add into the mix people are away from their families, and are living in very soulless accommodation, I think it causes people’s brains to flip.”

Despite this, the 51-year-old insisted she still believed in parliament, and felt compelled to stay and make it and the world better.She explained: “It’s because there’s still stuff to do, both in the outside world and in here. I’m going to say something really trite, but we have to make a difference.

"Particularly when it it comes to sexual harassment, misogyny, the treatment of women in the workplace, doesn’t matter where it is, here we are in 2023, and I hate using that phrase, but we’re still dealing with attitudes that were perhaps seen as acceptable in the 1970s and 1980s, and sure as hell aren’t acceptable now.

"If people don’t challenge them and if people don’t stay here to fight these outdated attitudes, nothing will change.

“Being here gives you the possibility to tweak the leaves of power. It gives you the opportunity to use legislation to actually impact change. I think this place is still very, very relevant to making that change.

"I love parliament, and want it to be seen as effective and relevant, doing the right thing. It’s really hard to make that change when people don’t feel safe to come to work.

"There have been horrendous incidents perpetrated against women and men in this place that are wholly unacceptable in any workplace. Just because this is a weird workplace, doesn’t mean that it’s different and anything should go”.