A Liberal Democrat MP has been ordered to issue an apology after being found in breach of Parliament’s rules concerning bullying.
Angus MacDonald, who represents Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, was subject to an investigation by Parliament’s complaints service following an incident in 2025 involving a contractor’s security pass.
The inquiry was initiated after a complaint from the contractor, who was on his first day working as a verbatim court reporter, undergoing training to cover parliamentary committee proceedings.
The contractor alleged that prior to a meeting of the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, Mr MacDonald grabbed the security pass he was wearing around his neck “without any prior warning and with such force that he was physically tilted forward” into a “semi-bowed position”.
During the subsequent investigation by Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Service (ICGS), Mr MacDonald said that he had no memory of the incident.
He suggested that he was “probably reading the complainant’s name on the pass” and denied bullying the contractor.
He further argued that, even if he had taken the contractor’s pass, the action did not amount to bullying or harassment.
The ICGS investigation and Parliament’s standards commissioner upheld the contractor’s complaint but Mr MacDonald appealed against their findings, claiming that there were flaws in the investigation and its findings were unreasonable.
However, an independent expert panel dismissed Mr MacDonald’s appeal, saying it had “no substance”.
In a report published on Tuesday, the panel said: “The procedures were not materially flawed nor were they unfair and the decisions reached by the commissioner were not unreasonable.”
Ordering Mr MacDonald to make a “full and unreserved apology in writing” to the contractor, the expert panel said that there had been a “significant power imbalance” between the MP and the complainant.
They also found that the complainant’s vulnerability as a new employee and someone who had suffered serious abuse when he was younger were aggravating factors, but noted Mr MacDonald was unaware of them.
The panel also noted that the case involved a single incident and Mr MacDonald had expressed some remorse by offering a “brief written apology” during the investigation.
They added: “His remorse is not, however, entirely unequivocal. Although he accepts that he may well have held the security pass without any warning or request to do so, he still denies that he would have used any force.
“Nevertheless, he expresses in his statement that he is deeply sorry the complainant was left feeling upset and disrespected.”
A spokesperson for Mr MacDonald said: “Mr MacDonald accepts the conclusions of this report and has provided a full written apology to the complainant. He regrets any distress caused to the individual involved.”
