Labour’s Harriet Harman has criticised a Conservative MP’s claims that the Westminster sexual harassment scandal is turning into a “witch hunt”.

Harman, who is a prominent campaigner on women’s rights, told the BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster programme: “There are a lot of men saying this has been blown out of all proportion, it’s a witch hunt. No, it’s not a witch hunt, it’s long overdue.”

Earlier on Saturday, Sir Roger Gale, said MPs accused of sexual harassment were being treated as “guilty before proven innocent” as part of a witch hunt.

He also said that the way allegations were being reported was despicable.



“We are not treating them as allegations. We are treating them as fact,” the MP for North Thanet said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“There are literally hundreds of decent, hardworking, honest men and women on both sides of the House of Commons who, this morning, will be going out to their constituency advice surgeries, to try to help people.



“In order to do that, they need to have the trust of the people they are trying to help, and to sell tomorrow’s chip wrappings on the back of allegations that are unfounded and undermine that trust in that way I think is despicable.

“In the context, there is no proof that I can see yet of any wrongdoing. There may be things that have been done, a hand on a knee. Fine, you know, 15 years ago that may have been acceptable where it’s not today.”

A number of MPs have denied allegations of inappropriate behaviour, and the chairman of the committee on standards in public life, Lord Bew, said independent bodies needed to be involved in investigations to avoid claims of a cover-up.

Earlier this week, the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, resigned from the cabinet and an uncorroborated spreadsheet detailing claims against 40 Tory MPs, almost all of which are unverified, was circulated on social media.



Harman, known as the “mother of the house” for being the longest-serving female MP, praised Theresa May for her response in relation to Fallon, but she said she would have liked to see women appointed as defence secretary and chief whip.



The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, said she was ashamed at some of the “disgusting” allegations of sexual abuse in the Labour party.



Thornberry, who said she had experienced inappropriate behaviour, told the BBC: “Some of the things that I have heard in the last week have been so disgusting and I am ashamed that this could happen in the Labour party.”



The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, called for party leaders to agree on new procedures when they meet next week to discuss how to deal with sexual harassment claims.



He told the BBC: “We have had one of our members come forward and say that she was raped. That is just unacceptable.



“We have had sexual harassment across all the political parties by the looks of it. So, we have got to tackle it.”

Gale had given a hypothetical example of a woman claiming a man kissed her in a lift five years ago, and said: “How does a member of parliament, male or female, or male and male, or female and female, because everything is in this mix, how does a member of parliament refute that? It’s a witch hunt.”



He said that “before we rush to judgment and say that everyone is guilty before they are proven innocent, we should look at the facts and decide and allow responsible people with access to look at the evidence to decide whether there actually is an accusation to be answered”.

The chairman of the committee on standards in public life, Lord Bew, told Today that harassment investigations could not be carried out by political parties.

“The parties need to get a grip of this issue of accountability,” he said. “It is vital that there are people outside parliament in cases of harassment, and so on, who are there, who can give some reassurance to the public that this is not just another cover-up.”



He said people expected MPs to behave better than others.



“The public does expect, it’s perfectly clear from our polling, somewhat higher standards from MPs than from other public servants … MPs just have to accept that there are things that university teachers, etc, local government officers, possibly, get away with which the public will not accept from MPs,” he said.

Gale questioned whether he could “no longer” put an arm around constituents who talked to him about their difficulties, and suggested young people may be put off entering politics for fear of facing harassment allegations.



As new allegations continue to surface at Westminster, three MPs denied wrongdoing.

Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, denied a claim that he had groped a woman at the Labour conference in September after it emerged the party was investigating a formal complaint against him.



He told the BBC: “I don’t, as a rule, at packed Labour party conferences grope people’s bottoms when I greet them. It’s just not how I roll, it’s not what I do.”



Labour’s former Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis denied he had made non-consensual sexual advances toward women. The Bury South MP made the remarks after BuzzFeed News reported that a woman had alleged he touched her leg and invited her to his house during a Labour party event in 2010 when she was 19.



Lewis said he had “never made non-consensual sexual comments or sexual advances to women”.



The suspended Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins said he categorically denied allegations of inappropriate conduct made by the activist Ava Etemadzadeh which the party is investigating.