MPs to be offered guards during constituency visits

MPs from Friday (22) will be offered security guard while meeting constituents after being warned that their work puts them at risk from "a small minority of hostile individuals".

This follows after the killing of Sir David Amess a week ago at a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. In a joint letter Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, and home secretary Priti Patel have urged MPs to deploy guards at surgeries.

“Colleagues will be rightly concerned about their own safety and security, and that of their staff, in the light of these tragic events,” Hoyle and Patel wrote.

“The work you carry out can put you at odds with a wide range of ideologies and views and a small minority of hostile individuals may be motivated by grievances which are difficult to detect and whose actions are hard to predict.”

They said that a “trained and accredited security operative will be available to come to your constituency surgeries”, in addition to arrangements already in place.

According to reports, some MPs have already installed stronger doors and are carrying alarms.

Hoyle and Patel reassured MPs that they did not have to return to in-person surgeries immediately. “The choice of whether or not to hold a physical surgery is an entirely personal one based on our individual situations. There is no suggestion of there being a right or wrong way to hold surgeries; the priority is for you to hold a safe surgery, if you choose to hold one.”

People light candles following a service in memory of British MP David Amess. (REUTERS/Chris Radburn)

They added: “As MPs, we must all have in mind not just our responsibility to ourselves and our families to follow security best practice but also our duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of our staff and our constituents.”

Meanwhile, Sunday Times had reported that the 25-year-old accused of the murder of Sir David in a terrorist attack had also targeted two other MPs, the court was told yesterday (21).

Ali Harbi Ali, charged with the murder of Amess, who prosecutors will argue that he was inspired by Islamic State, allegedly plotting a terrorist attack for two years, before killing Amess, 69.

He is alleged to have spied on two unnamed members of parliament this year, by carrying out reconnaissance at one of their homes, the constituency surgery of another, and at the Houses of Parliament.

Reports suggest that prosecutors will argue that Ali, a British man of Somali descent, may have targeted Amess because of his record of voting on Syrian airstrikes. The Crown Prosecution Service said it would argue that Amess’s murder had a terrorist connection involving “both religious and ideological motivations”.

Amess, the Conservative MP for Southend West, was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.