You might think that MPs would be the staunchest advocates of accountability in our democracy. But the harassment crisis sweeping Westminster highlights a strange truth. In the eyes of some MPs, the very act of getting elected exempts them from being held to the normal standards of behaviour that apply to the rest of us.

The role of an MP is in many ways exceptional, and parliament’s rules – including the privilege that prevents them being prosecuted for what they say during parliamentary proceedings – are expressly designed to support this. But that doesn’t mean that the normal standards of behaviour and rules of society – including employment laws set down by MPs for the rest of us – should not apply to them.

There are a great many MPs who strive to maintain the highest possible standards of personal and professional behaviour. But for the significant minority who promote a “don’t you know who I am?” culture, any effort to hold MPs to normal standards is seen as an outrageous contravention of their rights as elected members. It is unclear whether the proposals that emerged from the PM’s meeting with party leaders last night go far enough to challenge this attitude.

During 10 years working for parliament, I lost count of the number of times I saw this culture in action. As a young clerk I was cornered in a corridor by one of the senior MPs who had sat on a committee I’d just been running and was at length bawled at for having – correctly – advised the chair to curtail the long and irrelevant speech he had been making. Inappropriate? Absolutely. Bullying? It certainly felt like it, and it was done in the knowledge that he could vent his spleen without any risk of repercussions.

Every attempt so far to create a workable harassment policy to give the staff who run the House of Commons recourse against MPs has failed on a number of counts. First, the power imbalance between House of Commons staff and MPs makes them particularly vulnerable. Conscious that their duties may require them to work closely with the perpetrator in future, staff are normally unwilling to make a fuss and risk detriment to their future career. So many incidents of harassment and bullying continue to go unreported.

Unlike MPs’ own staff, who are employed directly by them, staff employed by the House of Commons are covered by a “respect” policy. However, if a complaint is made, and the complainant isn’t satisfied by attempts to mediate a resolution, there is an impossibly high bar for the incident to be investigated in a way that could lead to any repercussions for the MP involved. There is a theoretical possibility of a complaint being investigated by the independent parliamentary commissioner for standards, but only if an MP has acted in a way “which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally”. However inappropriate the actions of an MP towards an individual member of staff, few incidents would meet the bar of causing detriment to the entire House of Commons.

A further problem arises from the fact that MPs are not actually employed by the House of Commons. So even if a staff complaint is upheld by the independent commissioner, it is not for her but for the Committee on Standards, and then the entire House of Commons, to vote on whether any sanction should be applied. MPs are the final arbiters of guilt or innocence. And both staff and MPs are well aware that the chances of any complaint reaching this stage are pretty remote. This means there is little incentive for MPs so-inclined to stop misbehaving, and staff have to continue to tolerate harassment.

Proponents of this “don’t you know who I am?” culture have, to date, argued that only a harassment procedure in which MPs control the final outcome is acceptable. They have been supported by party whips, who are keen to maintain control over the discipline of MPs. But they do so at the expense of parliamentary staff.

The political response to the current crisis does not yet go far enough. The new Conservative code of conduct involves inquiries into complaints being undertaken by a panel of three people, with only one required to be independent of the party. The new Labour policy requires complaints to be reviewed by a panel appointed by national executive committee. Both proposals leave politicians at the centre of the process. It is unclear which staff will be covered by the “new grievance procedure” announced by the PM and to what extent politicians will continue to be involved.

A satisfactory harassment procedure should be a straightforward matter of compliance with accepted HR standards and employment law. A system that requires politicians to police these standards among their own peers will always be fundamentally flawed. Just as the expenses scandal led to the creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the current crisis shows that the only effective way to tackle bullying and harassment in parliament is to hand responsibility over to an independent authority, equipped with a range of appropriate sanctions. Recourse to that authority should be available to both MPs’ employees and parliamentary staff.

• Dr Hannah White is director of research at the Institute for Government and was a House of Commons clerk between 2004 and 2014