The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Margaret Ferrier, should be suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for breaching Covid rules, the committee on standards has recommended.
Ferrier could face a byelection as the Commons watchdog recommended she be suspended for 30 days for breaching Covid rules. She was found to have damaged the reputation of the Commons and put people at risk after taking part in a debate and travelling by train while suffering from Covid.
On Saturday 26 September 2020, Ferrier developed symptoms and took a Covid test, but the next day she attended church and had lunch with a family member.
On Monday 28 September, while awaiting the results of the test, she travelled by train to London, took part in a Commons debate and ate in the members’ tearoom in parliament. That evening she received a text telling her the test was positive. Instead of isolating, she travelled back to Scotland by train the next morning.
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The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, said Ferrier had breached the code of conduct for MPs “by placing her own personal interest of not wishing to self-isolate immediately or in London over the public interest of avoiding possible risk of harm to health and life”.
She also breached the code because “her actions commencing from when she first took a Covid-19 test to when she finally begins self-isolation have caused significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, and of its members generally”.
The Commons standards committee recommended she should face a 30-day suspension, which MPs will be asked to approve.
