Commons leader uneasy after ill and pregnant MPs forced to vote in house

The leader of the Commons has privately voiced concern that ill and heavily pregnant Labour MPs were made to go through the division lobbies to vote in the debate on the EU withdrawal bill on Wednesday, after she was forced to defend what had happened in the House of Commons.

Andrea Leadsom believes making Naz Shah come into the chamber in a wheelchair and demanding that Laura Pidcock, who is eight months pregnant, follow suit should not be repeated and that there should be better communication been Conservative and Labour whips.

Leadsom’s unease over the episode amounts to criticism of the aggressive approach taken by her own party’s chief whip, Julian Smith, in the run-up to the vote on Wednesday. It came as she announced that the Commons would have the chance next month to debate introducing a proxy voting system for MPs on maternity or paternity leave.

Leadsom told the Commons on Thursday she was “particularly sorry” that Shah “was forced to come and vote here while she was unwell” but then provoked anger from Labour MPs in the chamber because she sought to shift some of the blame to the opposition party.

Responding to her opposite number, Valerie Vaz, Leadsom said: “The fact that she had to come all the way from Bradford when she was clearly so unwell is clearly a matter for the honourable lady’s party.” Vaz had complained that “all the trust and conventions appear to have broken down that enable us to carry out our work here”.

Leadsom said a request that Shah be “nodded through” – a convention by which an ill MP can be deemed to have voted if they can be driven down to Westminster in a car or ambulance – came too late when it was made at noon, four hours before the eventual vote.

However, sources in the Labour whips’ office said nodding through requests had previously been granted at much shorter notice, and expressed surprised that the Conservatives had refused to allow Shah’s vote to be counted in her absence even after party rebel Dominic Grieve announced he would back the government, making a government victory certain.

The Conservative whips only allowed one Labour member, Cat Smith, who is nine months pregnant, to miss the vote, through a pairing arrangement in which an MP from the opposing side sits out a vote, meaning that the two absences cancel each other out.

With no other pairs made available, Labour says it was obliged to send Shah and Pidcock through the division lobbies in person. “This was a decision taken by Conservative chief whip Julian Smith,” said a source in the Labour whips’ office.

Leadsom announced that the Commons will have the opportunity on 5 July to debate introducing a system of proxy voting, which allow MPs absent on maternity, paternity or adoption leave the chance to nominate a third party to physically vote on their behalf.