On 16 October 2023, following a complaint made in October 2021, Bone was recommended to be suspended from the House of Commons by the Independent Expert Panel after a report found he had "Committed many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct" against a male member of his staff. The recommended suspension length of six weeks, subsequently confirmed by the Commons, triggered a recall petition under the Recall of MPs Act 2015.[5][6] Bone denied the claims against him and said the investigation was "flawed" and "procedurally unfair".[7] On 17 October, Bone lost the Conservative whip, but continued to sit as an independent until a successful recall petition in Wellingborough vacated his seat on 19 December 2023.[8][9]
In 1978, Bone was elected as a councillor for the Blenheim ward on Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, where he served for eight years, until 1986.[12] He was elected as the deputy chairman of the Southend West Conservative Association in 1977 and continued in the position until 1984.[13] In 1982, he became press secretary to the Conservative MP Paul Channon.
Early on in his career, he was described as one of the most active MPs in Parliament, in terms of questions asked and other contributions.[20] However, the quality of those interventions was questioned in a 2006 article in The Times about the Theyworkforyou website.[20] Bone was one of three MPs specifically alleged to have "boosted their ratings on the internet by saying very little, very often."[20] Among his 109 speeches was one which ran to three short sentences (standing up for Royal Mail in that a sub-postmaster in Little Irchester had the only business in the village).[20] He regularly referenced his then-wife "Mrs Bone" in parliamentary questions and debates.[21]
Bone was a member of the 1922 Committee and was an executive member from 2007 to 2012.[13]
Although Bone was not mentioned in the 2009 Legg Report that was central to the official investigation into the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal and therefore was not one of the 343 MPs required to pay back any money,[23] he was subject to some later reports relating to his expenses. He was one of 32 MPs who claimed the maximum allowance of £4,800 a year for food in 2010[24] and came under investigation in 2014 for expenses claims relating to the upkeep of his second home.[25] In 2016. he was criticised for using the government's help-to-buy scheme, which was meant to help young first time buyers, to buy himself a new constituency home.[26]
At the 2010 general election Bone was re-elected as the MP for Wellingborough with an increased majority of 18,540 votes, achieving a swing of 6.15%.[27][circular reference]
Bone proposed a bill in July 2013, arguing that the August Bank Holiday should be renamed to Margaret Thatcher Day to commemorate her premiership.[28] The bill ran out of time, due to filibustering by Labour MPs[29] and formally ended its passage through Parliament in 2014.[30]
In February 2014, The Times newspaper reported that Bone had been under investigation by the police during the previous 12 months relating to an alleged £100,000 fraud concerning benefit payments of care home fees for his mother-in-law.[31] Bone issued a lengthy statement denying fraud allegations.[32] In March 2014, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.[33]
In February 2018, following the announcement that Northamptonshire County Council had brought in a "section 114" notice, putting it in special measures following a crisis in its finances, Bone was one of seven local MPs who released a statement arguing that the problems with the authority were down to mismanagement from the Conservative councillors who led it rather than funding cuts from the Conservative government. They further argued that government commissioners should take over the running of the council.[37]
Before they separated, Bone employed his wife, Jennie, as his executive secretary.[38] In 2007–2008, he paid her "in the top bracket of up to £40,000" per annum.[39] The practice of MPs employing family members has been criticised by some sections of the media as nepotism.[40] Although MPs who were first elected in 2017 were banned from employing family members, the restriction was not retrospective – meaning that Bone's employment of his wife was lawful.[41]
In June 2018, Bone defended fellow Conservative MP Christopher Chope after he was widely criticised for blocking a private member's bill to make it illegal to take photos of people aimed up their skirts. Bone said that Chope was "a great parliamentarian and public servant" and stated that "a government upskirting bill should be introduced soon, properly scrutinised and will become law much faster than by the private member's bill route."[42]
In the 2019 general election, Bone increased his majority over Labour to 18,540, achieving 62.2% of the votes cast.[43]
On 16 October 2023, the Independent Expert Panel recommended that Bone be suspended from the House of Commons, after a report found he had "committed many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct" against a male member of his staff.[45][5] The report stated that, having booked a single room for the two of them on a work trip in 2013, Bone had "dropped his towel and exposed his genitals close to his employee's face" while they were in the bathroom and went on to expose himself to the complainant in their shared bedroom.[46] Following that trip, Bone ostracised the complainant.[47] Bone was also found to have pressured the man into massaging him when they were alone in the office, and to have thrown objects or struck him on a number of occasions.[46][48]
In 2015, an initial complaint was made by the man's father to the prime minister David Cameron, followed by a second complaint submitted to Theresa May (the new prime minister) in 2017.[49] As the Conservative Party had not resolved its own investigation in a timely manner, the employee made a complaint through the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme in October 2021.[49][47] That led to an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards who upheld the five allegations relating to bullying and harassment, and one of sexual misconduct by Bone.[48] Bone appealed against the findings and the suspension, which were both upheld, and so a report to the house was made on 16 October 2023 recommending his suspension for six weeks.[47]
Bone denied the allegations in the report via a post on the social media site X (formerly known as Twitter), stating the claims listed were "false and untrue" and "without foundation". He also said that the investigation by the IEP was "flawed" and "procedurally unfair".[50][7]
On 17 October, the Conservative Party withdrew the whip, suspending him from his membership of the Parliamentary Conservative Party; he continued sitting as an independent MP.[51][52]
Following a vote in the House of Commons, Bone was suspended from the House on 25 October 2023 for six weeks.[53][54] The Recall of MPs Act 2015 requires a recall petition to be held for an MP suspended for ten days or more. If 10% of constituents sign it, the MP is recalled, requiring a by-election to elect a new MP for the constituency.[55][56] The recall petition was successful, with 10,505 votes out of a possible 79,402 eligible votes (13.2%), and Bone ceased to be a Member of Parliament, leaving the seat vacant and triggering a by-election. The threshold to achieve a successful petition was 7,940 (or more) signatures.
Bone stated on social media that the decision "seems bizarre" given that a majority of eligible voters did not vote for the recall.[57]
Post-suspension activities
On 31 October, following his suspension from the House of Commons and the Conservative whip, Bone was reported to have been campaigning with government minister Tom Pursglove.[58] Following criticism by the Labour Party about this, the Prime Minister's spokesman said that Rishi Sunak had confidence in Pursglove.[59]
Political views
Bone is regarded as being on the right wing of the Conservative Party, and is a member of the socially conservative traditionalist Cornerstone Group.[60] He has voted to lower the abortion time limit to 12 weeks and voted against abolishing the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. He has urged the Charity Commission to award the tax breaks of registration to any legal faith group.[61] The abortion time limit vote failed, the blasphemy vote passed, and tax breaks were not awarded.[62][63]
Bone opposed the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, which he claimed would "condemn hundreds of thousands to the dole queue" and, in 2009, backed a private member's bill tabled by his colleague, Christopher Chope, proposing to enable employees to opt out of the minimum wage.[64]
In 2009, Bone said of the National Health Service (NHS): "We have gone from having one of the best health services in the Western world to arguably the worst", which had "centralised and Stalinist management".[65]
In 2013, Bone was one of four MPs who camped outside Parliament in a move to facilitate parliamentary debate on what they called an "Alternative Queen's Speech" – an attempt to show what a future Conservative government might deliver.[34][68] Forty-two policies were listed including reintroduction of the death penalty and conscription, privatising the BBC, banning the burka in public places, and preparation to leave the European Union.[68]The Daily Telegraph believed the whips sent Edward Leigh to try to persuade the group not to table the amendments.[68] Bone blamed the Liberal Democrats for tying David Cameron's hands.[34]
A prominent Eurosceptic, Bone was often named as a potential defector to the UK Independence Party (UKIP). In 2014, Bone described UKIP's emergence as a "good thing for British politics", and criticised his own party for "neglecting" the views of traditional Conservatives on other issues such as immigration, but said he intended to campaign for withdrawal from the EU from within the Conservative Party.[69] Bone is a director of Grassroots Out and was a director of the now-dissolved Go Movement Limited, with Nigel Farage and Tom Pursglove.
In September 2019, Bone said that a general election would be a "good thing" and a necessary step in order to establish a "Conservative government with a majority" and prevent a no-deal Brexit.[70] Bone said that Boris Johnson would be an "excellent prime minister and get a proper Brexit deal and lead us to victory in the next general election". On 6 June 2022, after a vote of no confidence in Johnson's leadership was called, Bone announced that he would vote in support of him.[71]
Personal life
Bone primarily lives in London, but also owns a flat in the Denington Estate (formerly John Lea School site) in Wellingborough. He married Jeanette Sweeney in 1981, and they had two sons and a daughter.[10] In 2016, Bone separated from his wife, who is a Conservative councillor in the Borough of Wellingborough, and he is currently in a relationship with physiotherapist Helen Harrison, who has been his senior parliamentary assistant since 2019.[72]
Bone played cricket as a left-arm bowler for Cambridge Methodists Cricket Club in Leeds.[73][74] He also played cricket as a member of a Parliamentarians team, alongside Crispin Blunt and Hugh Robertson.[75]
In March 2022, a man from Wellingborough pleaded guilty to three malicious communications offences of sending abusive and offensive messages to Bone's office phone relating to the government's Covid-19 restrictions, and was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months.[76][77]
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