Three female politicians have been given taxpayer-funded bodyguards and cars amid growing concerns about MPs’ safety.
The women have had their security upgraded after a risk assessment was carried out with support from a secretive organisation tasked with providing protection for the most prominent members of the government and the royal family.
The Sunday Times is not naming the MPs. They include representatives of the Conservative and Labour parties.
Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, has been working with the Home Office, the police and the parliamentary authorities to significantly enhance the safety and security of MPs.
As part of the overhaul, the royal and VIP executive committee (Ravec), which is responsible for the security of the royal family as well as senior politicians including the prime minister and home secretary, has been brought in to help assess the threat to MPs.
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The new process, which is initiated after a referral is made by the police or parliamentary authorities, has been introduced in recent weeks after an escalation in the threat level faced by British politicians.
“Many MPs are petrified by the abuse they are facing,” one senior security source said. Lisa Nandy, the shadow international development secretary, told Times Radio that she now carries an alarm “everywhere I go”.
It is understood that the female MPs requiring additional security have been provided with close protection by private companies, along with chauffeur-driven cars, which are normally provided only to senior members of the cabinet and the leader of the opposition.
The security of other MPs deemed at risk is also under review. For those MPs not requiring the highest level of protection, action has been taken to improve security measures in London and their constituencies, involving the installation of thousands of security measures at hundreds of MPs’ constituency offices and homes.
Along with a police presence when necessary, private security operatives have been deployed to thousands of MP surgeries and provided members with close protection for hundreds of events.
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Security advice has also been made available to hundreds of MPs, including through a team of advisers based across the UK.
A senior Whitehall source said: “We’ve taken a front-footed approach to co-ordinating action against the people or suspects that intelligence suggests most threaten MPs.”
Ravec is largely opaque and its membership, along with decision-making on who is afforded protection and to what degree, is largely kept secret. However, insiders say it presides over a budget of hundreds of millions of pounds. It was dragged into a legal challenge between Prince Harry and the Home Office over its refusal to allow him to pay for police protection while in the UK.
The development comes days after Sir Lindsay Hoyle spoke of his deep concern for the safety of MPs after chaotic scenes in parliament.
As he defended his decision to allow a vote on a Labour amendment to an SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the Speaker stressed that the safety of MPs had been at the forefront of his mind.
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“I will defend every member in this House. Both sides. I never ever want to go through a situation where I pick up a phone to find a friend, whatever side, has been murdered by terrorists,” Hoyle said. “I also don’t want an attack on this House.”
He added that “the details of the things that have been brought to me are absolutely frightening”.
While some Tory MPs have accused Hoyle and Labour of bowing to threats and intimidation from “Islamist extremists”, the Speaker has recently warned of the growing threat to politicians from the far right.
Jo Cox, the Labour MP, was murdered in 2016 by the far-right extremist Thomas Mair, while Sir David Amess, the Tory MP, was stabbed to death at a constituency surgery in 2021 by Ali Harbi Ali, an Islamic State sympathiser.
Last week a leading pro-Palestinian activist told demonstrators he wanted “parliament to have to lock its doors”. Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), organised the rally outside parliament on Wednesday in which the anti-Israel slogan “from the river to the sea” was projected on to the Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben.
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The Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, whose constituency home in Dorset was targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters this month, said the actions of the PSC “deter good people from considering public office”.
Condemning the rising tide of intimidation faced by MPs, Rishi Sunak said in a statement: “The events of recent weeks are but the latest in an emerging pattern which should not be tolerated. Legitimate protests hijacked by extremists to promote and glorify terrorism, elected representatives verbally threatened and physically, violently targeted, and antisemitic tropes beamed onto our own parliament building.
“And in parliament this week a very dangerous signal was sent that this sort of intimidation works. It is toxic for our society and our politics and is an affront to the liberties and values we hold dear here in Britain.
“The explosion in prejudice and antisemitism since the Hamas terrorist attacks on the 7th October, are as unacceptable as they are un-British. Simply put, antisemitism is racism. And speaking as someone who has experienced racism, I know it when I see it.
“I am proud to be the first British Asian prime minister. But I am even prouder that when it happened, it was not a focus at all. When my family came to this country, they retained their heritage and their religion but this did not stop them embracing and serving their new community. They became British and proud of it. This is what we should aspire to. Not the violence, intimidation and intolerance for others we have seen infect our streets recently.”
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Nandy told Times Radio: “Instead of doing publicly advertised surgeries, we now do them by appointment. We have security present. I carry a police alarm everywhere that I go. I have security on my home. And that is a really very typical experience for members of parliament.
“I went to a party meeting just last week and had people gathering around the entrance of that, shouting ‘genocide’ … we’ve had a couple of senior members of the shadow cabinet surrounded by people [making] very aggressive comments about their … families.”
She continued: “We take the views and the voices of people in this country seriously, and … MPs are the mechanism through which they must be heard. And when you threaten and intimidate us, you’re … trying to silence people out in the country as well. And that’s unacceptable. And we won’t stand for it.”
James Cleverly, the home secretary, discussed the issue of MPs’ safety on Thursday during a private meeting with Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner. According to a source, Cleverly and Rowley agreed on the seriousness of the situation and that the Met needed to monitor it.
Michael Gove, the levelling-up and communities secretary, is pushing for a new Whitehall counter-extremism plan to be accelerated and announced within weeks.
Gove’s department has been working for several months on a broader definition of extremism, which would look to capture individuals and organisations that are skirting grey areas in the law.
A new Whitehall counter-extremism unit, which would be responsible for monitoring signs of extremism within communities, has been mooted. The unit would also be responsible for co-ordinating enforcement action across different government departments.
However, progress on the strategy has slowed amid internal wrangling with other Whitehall departments and No 10, in particular over potential legal ramifications and concerns that the definition, if drawn too loosely, could stymie free speech and drag in legitimate organisations.
Labour is ratcheting up pressure on the government to deliver the strategy, with Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, saying: “We urgently need a new countering-extremism strategy including stronger action to tackle hate crime and online radicalisation, as toxic and hateful ideologies are being spread online and on the streets, leaving Britain feeling less safe.
“Serious leadership is needed to rapidly respond to the fast-changing challenges we face to community safety and national security, but the Conservatives are leaving a glaring gap.”
