Home Secretary: MPs security review under way
Home Secretary Priti Patel has announced that a review of MPs’ security measures is under way after the fatal stabbing of Essex MP Sir David Amess.
As reported by the BBC, Patel said that “acts like this are absolutely wrong and cannot get in the way of our functioning democracy,” adding that appropriate security will allow politicians to “carry on with their duties as elected democratic members.”
Patel also thanked the police for their speed and “selfless professionalism, as ever putting themselves in harms’ way to protect the rest of us.”
The Amess murder reopened a debate on MPs’ security – which in recent years was brought to light after the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016.
Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood called MPs to stop holding live surgeries and resort to alternative methods for the time being. “I would recommend that no MP has direct surgery,” he told World Tonight on Radio 4.
“You can move to Zoom, there’s other ways, you can actually achieve an awful lot over the telephone, you can get things moving far faster than having to wait for the surgery date as well.”