Rees-Mogg: Sex pest MP should resign

JACOB Rees-Mogg has said it would be ‘honourable’ for disgraced sex pest MP Rob Roberts to stand down. The Commons Leader made the remark yesterday as he confirmed the Government is looking into a loophole which prevents the MP’s constituents from forcing him out.

He said it was ‘frankly ridiculous’ that Parliament had a stronger punishment for those who misuse envelopes than for those who commit sexual misconduct.

Mr Roberts, pictured, was found to have repeatedly propositioned an employee, telling him to be ‘less alluring’, by a panel appointed by Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme.

He has been suspended from the Commons for six weeks and has lost the Tory whip. But there was fury that his constituents are unable to back a recall petition to force a by-election in his seat of Delyn, North Wales.

Mr Rees-Mogg told MPs that ‘following a case of this severity...it would be honourable for a member to stand down after the withdrawal of the whip’. He said he has asked the panel chairman whether changes should be made to the process.