Sitting Members imprisoned since 1945

When a Member of the House of Commons is imprisoned for any length of time, the sentencing judge or magistrate informs the Speaker of the detention by letter. The Speaker notifies the House of Commons of the contents of the letter at the earliest opportunity. The text of the letter is published in Hansard and in the Votes and Proceedings.

Where an MP is convicted but released on bail pending an appeal, or if an MP resigns after conviction but before sentence is passed, no communication is made.

Until 2016, in all cases in which MPs were arrested on criminal charges, the House of Commons was informed either by a statement from the Speaker or by publishing notification in the Votes and Proceedings. Protocol changed following a report from the Procedure Committee, Notification of the arrest of Members, agreed to by the House on 10 February 2016. 

The Committee recommended retaining the requirement for police forces to notify the House authorities of the arrest of an MP on a criminal charge, while removing the obligation of the Speaker to notify the House. It proposed instead that once notified, the Clerk of the House would consult the arrested MP as to whether they wished the notification to be made to the House. 

Recall of MPs Act 2015 

A recall procedure for Members of Parliament was introduced in 2015. This allows the electorate of a parliamentary constituency to trigger a by-election. 

Section 4(2) of the Recall of MPs Act 2015 requires the Speaker to be notified of the sentencing and imprisonment of a sitting MP. Section 4(4) of the Act requires the Speaker to be informed of any appeal against conviction and the result of that appeal. 

MPs can be recalled under three circumstances: 

• Conviction in the UK of any offence and sentenced or ordered to be imprisoned or detained, after all appeals have been exhausted. Note – a sentence over 12 months in jail automatically disqualifies someone from being an MP;
• Suspension from the House following report and recommended sanction from the Committee on Standards for a specified period (at least 10 sitting days, or at least 14 days if sitting days are not specified);
• Convicted of an offence under section 10 of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 (making false or misleading Parliamentary allowances claims). Note – the sentence does not have to be custodial for this condition.

Once an MP has been convicted, imprisoned and exhausted the appeals process, the Speaker must give notice to the local returning officer in the MP’s constituency to open a recall petition. When dealing with this issue, they are known as a petition officer.

Background to the introduction of recall, details of the recall process and recall campaigns can be found in the Commons Library Briefing Paper: Recall elections.

The downloadable Excel file lists Members of the House of Commons who have been imprisoned since 1945, including the length of the sentence, reason for imprisonment and date the House was notified. Source details are available in the Excel file. 

Further information

Criminal law and statutory detention, Erskine May

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