A UK minister has warned that “appropriate discipline” will be imposed on Tory MPs who voted against the government without “specific constituency reasons” in last night’s chaotic vote on fracking.
“The parliamentary managers will discuss with the colleagues who did not vote with the three-line whip why this happened. Sometimes there are very specific constituency reasons or indeed health reasons,” Anne-Marie Trevelyan told Sky News on Thursday.
Trevelyan, the UK transport secretary, said that if MPs could not justify their abstention, “appropriate discipline will be enacted”.
The Labor party won a vote on Wednesday that would allow it to introduce legislation to ban fracking. The government wants to pursue fracking to generate greater energy independence.
Labor politicians claimed Tory whips, who enforce party discipline, tried to physically push rebel MPs into supporting the government.
Chris Bryant, chairman of the Commons’ standards committee, said MPs had been “mistreated” and “harassed”.
The government won the vote by 326 to 230, but a significant number of Conservative MPs abstained.
“I wasn’t in the halls, but I’m shocked to hear the descriptions of what happened,” Trevelyan said.
The Transport Secretary said she hoped House Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who presides over debates in parliament, would “investigate closely . . . to ensure these scenes and situations do not happen again”.