Leading Conservative MP Miriam Cates has been placed under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog.
The backbench MP is facing claims that she has caused “significant damage to the reputation of the House as a whole, or of its members generally”.
However, it is not known what the investigation — opened on December 14 — relates to.
Those under investigation by Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg are also barred from discussing the allegations.
Cates was elected as MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge in 2019, winning the seat from the Labour Party.
In parliament, she has become a leading figure of the right-wing New Conservatives group.
The New Conservatives is one of the so-called “five families” of right-wing party factions seeking to strengthen the government’s legislation to implement the Rwanda deportation plan.
She has also been outspoken in her concern about declining fertility rates in Britain, claiming the declining birth rate in the UK was partly down to “cultural Marxism” and increased numbers of people going to university.
Cates is now one of eight MPs currently being investigated by standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg.
Others include senior Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin, deputy speaker Dame Eleanor Laing and the Reclaim MP Andrew Bridgen.
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