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Former Tory minister Peter Bone has been kicked out the parliamentary party after a report found he committed acts of bullying and sexual misconduct.

Mr Bone has lost the Conservative whip – meaning he will have to sit as an independent MP.

A spokesperson for Chief Whip Simon Hart said: “Following a report by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP), the Chief Whip has removed the Conservative whip from Peter Bone MP.”

On Monday, a report by parliament’s IEP found that Mr Bone “trapped” a member of staff in a room where he exposed himself – in what the panel said was a “deliberate and conscious abuse of power”.

Mr Bone, the MP for Wellingborough, “committed many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct” against the staff member in 2012 and 2013, the panel said.

It recommended that he be suspended from the House of Commons for six weeks – paving the way for another potential by-election and headache for Rishi Sunak.

Mr Bone said the allegations are “false and untrue” and “without foundation” as he vowed to continue representing his constituents.

Five allegations by a Westminster staffer were made in October 2021 after a complaint made to then prime minister Theresa May in 2017 went unresolved, the IEP said.

The complaints included four allegations of bullying, detailing that Mr Bone “verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated” his employee and “repeatedly physically struck and threw things” at him.

The report said Mr Bone also imposed an “unwanted and humiliating ritual” on him by forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap when he was unhappy with his work, and that he ostracised his staff member following an incident on a work trip to Madrid.

The complainant also alleged that Mr Bone had “repeatedly pressurised” the member of staff to give him a massage in the office and, on a visit to Madrid with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, indecently exposed himself to the complainant in the bathroom and bedroom of the hotel room they were sharing.

In its findings, the IEP said: “This is a serious case of misconduct. The bullying involved violence, shouting and swearing, mocking, belittling and humiliating behaviour, and ostracism.

“This wilful pattern of bullying also included an unwanted incident of sexual misconduct, when the complainant was trapped in a room with the respondent in a hotel in Madrid. This was a deliberate and conscious abuse of power using a sexual mechanism: indecent exposure.”

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Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

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Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

The CARF regulation, which brings crypto under global tax reporting standards akin to traditional finance, marks a crucial turning point.

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Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

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Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

The nascent real-world tokenized assets track prices but do not provide investors the same legal rights as holding the underlying instruments.

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

Read more:
Yet another fiscal ‘black hole’? Here’s why this one matters

Success or failure: One year of Keir in nine charts

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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

More on Rachel Reeves

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

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Why was the chancellor crying at PMQs?

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

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Reeves is ‘totally’ up for the job

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

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