Exclusive: How MPs could have averted Parliament’s harassment crisis

MPs tried to set up an independent complaints process into sexual harassment and bullying as far back as 2016, but their efforts were blocked, I have learned.

Anne Milton, who was the Conservative Deputy Chief Whip between 2015 and 2017, told Coffee House that she became increasingly concerned that the political parties’ own complaints processes were insufficiently independent, and convened a meeting of whips and Commons clerks to try to get Parliament to set up its own process. She had received a number of complaints from staff who had been bullied by MPs or other employees, and was concerned that there was often no proper recourse for these complainants.

The whips from the main and smaller parties were largely supportive of the idea, accepting that it would be a good thing for Parliament to have its own process. Others involved in the meeting said it had also been motivated by a fear that setting up a better process in the Tory party would be difficult.