Rejected petition: Amend electoral law to stop MPs under investigation from triggering by-elections
Rejected on
Introduce legislation to prevent any Member of Parliament who is the subject of an active Parliamentary Standards Commissioner investigation from voluntarily resigning to trigger a by-election before that investigation concludes.
Further information is provided next.
Allowing sitting MPs to resign while under financial scrutiny pauses the official accountability process and exploits a systemic legal loophole. This mechanism places an unfair financial burden on the taxpayer, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds per contest, at a time when funds are stretched. The electorate should not foot the bill for tactical resignations done to evade regulatory scrutiny. Standards investigations must be legally allowed to finish, despite an MP's resignation status.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
You may wish to sign this petition, which calls for similar action: "Prevent MPs under investigation from resigning from the House of Commons" https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/776380
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.