Three female MPs have been given taxpayer-funded bodyguards and cars as concerns over politicians’ safety are escalating.
The women – who have not been named but include representatives of the Conservative and Labour parties – have had their security upgraded as MPs are said to be “petrified” at the abuse they are facing.
In an overhaul of safety measures in place for MPs, Security Minister Tom Tugendhat has been working with the Home Office, the police and the parliamentary authorities, as well as the royal and VIP executive committee (Ravec), a secretive organisation responsible for the security of senior politicians and the royal family.
The new process, launched following a referral by police or parliamentary authorities, comes as the threat level faced by British politicians has shot up in recent weeks.
A senior security source told The Sunday Times: “Many MPs are petrified by the abuse they are facing.”
The newspaper understands the three female MPs have been given close protection from private companies, as well as chauffeur-driven cars, which are usually only limited to senior members of the cabinet and the leader of the opposition.
“We’ve taken a front-footed approach to co-ordinating action against the people or suspects that intelligence suggests most threaten MPs,” said a senior Whitehall source.
Other MPs’ security is also under review if they are deemed at risk, while, for those not needing the highest level of protection, thousands of security measures have been put in place in London and at hundreds of constituency offices and homes.
Private security operatives have been used at thousands of members’ surgeries and hundreds of events, alongside a police presence if required. MPs also have access to security advice, including via advisers based throughout the UK.
Ravec’s membership and decisions are mostly opaque, although insiders do say it has a budget of hundreds of millions of pounds.
It comes after the Palestine Solidarity Campaign defended the right to lobby MPs “in large numbers”, amid reports the group wanted so many protesters to turn up that Parliament would “have to lock the doors”.
The group said the issue of MPs’ security was “serious” but should not be used to “shield MPs from democratic accountability”.
The organisation’s director Ben Jamal said thousands of people were “shamefully” denied entry into Parliament on Wednesday as they attempted to lobby MPs to vote in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza in what he described was one of the largest physical lobbies of parliament in history.
The Times reported that Mr Jamal told a crowd of demonstrators in the build-up to the protest on Wednesday: “We want so many of you to come that they will have to lock the doors of Parliament itself.”
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker who has faced calls to resign after going against convention during the SNP’s Opposition Day debate on a ceasefire, said his motivation for widening Wednesday’s discussion was fuelled by concern about MPs’ security because of intimidation suffered by some parliamentarians.
Mr Jamal said the group “does not call” for protests outside MPs’ homes and believed parliamentarians have a right “to have their privacy respected”.
The government’s political violence tsar has said police should have the powers to “disperse” protests around Parliament, MPs’ offices and council chambers that they deem to be threatening.
Baron Walney, the Government’s adviser on political violence and disruption, said on Friday that the “aggressive intimidation of MPs” by “mobs” was being mistaken for an “expression of democracy”.
The crossbench peer, who in December submitted a Government-commissioned review into how actions by political groups can “cross into criminality and disruption to people’s lives”, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was calling for police forces to act “uniformly in stopping” protest outside MPs’ homes.