MP who watched pornography in the House of Commons officially resigns
AN MP who admitted watching porn in the House of Commons officially resigned yesterday.
Neil Parish’s departure came after reports that female Conservatives had seen a colleague watching inappropriate material in Parliament.
The news means a by-election will now be held in the Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton.
It also leaves an influential rural Parliamentary role up for grabs, as he vacates the chairmanship of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee.
The former MP told the BBC at the weekend that the first time he watched pornography in the Commons was an accident, claiming he had been looking for photographs of tractors.
But he admitted the second occasion was intentional.
In an interview with BBC South West, he said: “The situation was, funnily enough it was tractors I was looking at, so I did get into another website with sort of a very similar name and I watched it for a bit, which I shouldn’t have done.
“My crime, my most biggest crime, is that on another occasion I went in a second time, and that was deliberate.
“That was sitting waiting to vote on the side of the chamber.”
The incident has led one former Minister to describe Westminster’s culture towards women as “belittling and demeaning”.
Senior Conservative Caroline Nokes said that when she was a “very new minister” she was told by an unnamed person that she had “only been given that job because of certain body parts” she had as a woman.
Ms Nokes was appointed a Junior Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions in 2016 by then Prime Minister Theresa May and was later made Immigration Minister.
She told GB News yesterday: “I think anybody in politics is quite assertive. They’re quite outspoken, they hold strong views.
“What we see in Westminster though, and what I’ve witnessed over the course of the last 12 years since I’ve been an MP, is what I would describe as the deliberate belittling and demeaning of women MPs, a culture which fosters a lack of respect.”
She told the broadcaster it was time to “get away” from a “male-dominated culture” and that it was taking too long to achieve a gender-balanced Parliament.
“In the meantime, we’re still having to contend with some really outdated and frankly unpleasant attitudes,” she added.