ANGER AS ILL MPs ‘FORCED TO VOTE IN PERSON’

MPS reacted angrily after sick and pregnant politicians were forced to come into the Commons to vote in person over the Brexit Bill amendment.

Labour’s Naz Shah, who has been ill, was brought into the chamber in a wheelchair, while expectant Lib Dem deputy leader Jo Swinson came in despite being past her due date, along with heavily pregnant Labour MP Laura Pidcock.

Commons convention is that incapacitated MPs are “nodded through” – meaning their votes are counted without them having to physically enter the lobbies.

But a Labour source said that the Conservatives had refused to nod people through on the close vote on Dominic Grieve’s amendment on the EU (Withdrawal Bill) that would give MPs a “meaningful vote” on the final Brexit deal.

It was eventually defeated by 16 votes, with only one pregnant MP, Cat Smith, paired with another absent MP.

The sight of Bradford West MP Ms Shah being wheeled into the House of Commons in a wheelchair while carrying a sick bucket was captured by the television cameras.

Shadow Women and Equalities Minister Dawn Butler attacked the treatment of her colleague, tweeting: “The truth is the Tories refused to nod her through. This is inhumane treatment.

“No other workplace would condone this type of working practice. Parliament needs to modernise.”

Ilford North MP Wes Streeting described the sight as “one of the most, if not the most, disgraceful things I have witnessed in three years here”.

Labour former deputy prime minister John Prescott also weighed in, tweeting: “In all my years in Parliament – even in the 1970s – I have NEVER seen this. This is absolutely bloody shameful.”