Conservative MP Miriam Cates is being investigated by the parliamentary commissioner for standards over claims she has caused “significant damage to the reputation” of the Commons and its members.

The probe was confirmed on the watchdog’s website, though details of the allegations have yet to come to light.

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A co-chair of the New Conservatives – one of the “five families” of right-wing factions within the Tory party – Ms Cates was recently in the headlines for her criticism of Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill, claiming it did not go far enough to disapply foreign human rights laws.

But she has often captured the media’s attention with her controversial views around family, claiming the declining birth rate in the UK was partly down to “cultural Marxism” and increased numbers of people going to university.

She told the US-run National Conservatism conference earlier this year that the drop in people having children was “the one overarching threat to British conservatism, and to the whole of Western society” – and greater than either climate change, or the threats from Russia and China.

Ms Cates is among eight MPs currently being investigated by standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg.

Others include deputy speaker Dame Eleanor Laing, Conservative Sir Bernard Jenkin and the Reclaim MP Andrew Bridgen.

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