The incident was said to have come to light at a meeting of Tory MPs on Wednesday night
A Tory frontbencher watched pornography on his mobile phone in the House of Commons while sitting alongside a female minister, a report claims.
The Mirror on Wednesday reported that the female minister – who it did not name – told colleagues about the incident, which happened in the last few months, at a meeting of Tory MPs at Westminster on Wednesday.
The newspaper said that three sources at the meeting told it that around a dozen women MPs shared accounts of alleged sexism and harassment by their colleagues at the meeting.
The claim comes after the Speaker of the House, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, summons the editor of the Mail On Sunday to a meeting over a story the newspaper ran suggesting Labour Leader, Angela Rayner, tried to distract Boris Johnson by uncrossing her legs during Prime Minister’s Questions.
Sir Lindsay said the article was demeaning and offensive to MPs, and could deter women from standing for election.
The Mail on Sunday’s article quoted one anonymous Tory MP who said that Rayner “knows she can’t compete with Boris’ Oxford Union debating training, but she has other skills which he lacks”.
The newspaper’s editor, David Dillon, has since refused the request. Writing in the Daily Mail, Dillon said he would not be attending as journalists should “not take instruction from officials of the House of Commons, however august they may be”.
“The Mail on Sunday deplores sexism and misogyny in all its forms,” he wrote.
“However journalists must be free to report what they are told by MPs about conversations which take place in the House of Commons, however unpalatable some may find them.”
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