Wycombe MP Steve Baker has explained why he voted against plans to ban MPs arrested for sexual offences from the House of Commons.

On Monday, MPs voted by 170 to 169 to toughen up plans for ‘risk-based exclusions’ from the parliamentary estate.

The government’s original motion proposed banning MPs if they were charged with serious violent or sexual offences.

However, an amendment lowering the threshold for MPs to be excluded from parliament put forward by Lib Dem MP Wendy Chamberlain and Labour MP Jess Phillips was voted through on Monday.

This means that MPs who have only been arrested for serious offences – rather than charged – can be excluded from parliament, as per the original recommendation from the House of Commons Commission.

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Baker has now explained his reasons for voting against the amendment along with 168 of his fellow MPs, the majority Conservatives like him.

Writing in a new blog post on his website, he claimed MPs were ‘vulnerable to wicked people’, which was why he voted to protect them from ‘losing their reputations unjustly, before they are charged’.

He said: “When anyone is investigated for a crime, they are arrested and questioned, then charged if there is a case to answer, then they go to court.

“They are innocent until proven guilty. Justice demands that they are not named until they are charged, otherwise people are vulnerable to losing their reputation on false allegations.”

Under the new exclusion system, a panel of senior MPs and others will decide whether an MP being investigated should be banned from parliament.

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