AN SNP MP has accused Jacob Rees-Mogg of disrespecting Westminster's army of low-paid cleaning and catering staff and putting them at risk.
Alison Thewliss said the Conservative MP, who is leader of the House of Commons, had been dismissive when she raised concerns about the safety of in-house staff during a debate about the physical return of MPs to parliament.
Ms Thewliss, SNP MP for Glasgow Central, said Mr Rees-Mogg's insistence that parliamentary bills could not progress if MPs were not in the House of Commons in person was "not entirely accurate" and then asked why he wanted to put people at risk.
She said: "The Leader of the House says that bills cannot progress, but that is not quite accurate. They can progress if there was the will to do so. Digital sittings could allow for this to happen in the same way select committees are happening, and this could easily happen if the measures were put in place to do so.
"It was a decision by the Leader of the House not to put this forward.
"So will the right honourable vector explain why he wants to put not just us, but the low paid catering and cleaning staff of this house, our constituents and anybody else we might meet between here and our own constituencies at risk?"
The Tory MP responded that the catering and cleaning staff "had been coming in to work anyway", which Ms Thewliss complained later had been "incredibly dismissive".
Following the session, Ms Thewliss raised with the deputy speaker Nigel Evans: "The leader of the house made reference to cleaners having to be in this building anyway and I feel the way that he did that was incredibly dismissive to the work those people do for us in this building.
"Is it your understanding that those cleaners coming in to clean this building are put infinitely more at risk by the presence of hundreds of additional people within this building than there would be if we were not here?"
Me Evans said he would "make absolutely certain" Mr Rees-Mogg was told of her comments.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here