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Scottish Labour suspends MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy

News imageGetty Images Pam Duncan-Glancy, who has shoulder-length red hair, looks off to the left of the camera.She is wearing a grey and white checked jacket and a white top and is in a wheelchair. She has a serious expression on her face.Getty Images
Pam Duncan-Glancy has been an MSP since 2021

The Labour whip in the Scottish Parliament has been removed from MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy while the party investigates her links with a convicted sex offender.

She stood down as her party's education spokesperson in December and said she would leave Holyrood in May after revelations about her friendship with former Moray councillor Sean Morton.

Earlier Labour removed the whip in the House of Lords from new peer Matthew Doyle, Sir Keir Starmer's former director of communications, to allow an investigation into his links to Morton.

A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: "All complaints are assessed thoroughly in line with our rules and procedures."

Duncan-Glancy admitted in December a "serious error of personal judgement" after it emerged she maintained contact with Morton following his 2017 conviction which involved indecent images of children.

She had been selected as a Glasgow candidate for this May's Holyrood election, but said she would not now be seeking re-election.

The Daily Record has since reported that Duncan-Glancy continued her friendship with Morton, a former Labour councillor, after he was jailed in January 2025 for further offences and that late last year he attended her birthday party.

The pair are reported to have known each other for more than 30 years, having met at high school.

Scottish Labour suspended Duncan-Glancy just hours after similar action was taken against Lord Doyle over his links to Morton.

It has emerged that he campaigned for Morton when he ran as an independent candidate in 2017, when he had been charged but not yet convicted.

In a statement Lord Doyle said Morton had repeatedly asserted his innocence at the time and only later changed his plea to guilty.

He added: "To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgement for which I apologise unreservedly."

The Labour veteran who had previously worked with Tony Blair was appointed as the prime minister's director of communications but resigned last March, after nine months in the job.

He was elevated to the House of Lords in January.