Scottish Labour suspends MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy

MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy has been suspended from Labour's Scottish parliamentary party while it investigates her links with a convicted sex offender.

Duncan-Glancy 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."

In December, Duncan-Glancy admitted 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 for 16 months in January 2025 for further offences and that late last year he attended her birthday celebration.

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 announced against Lord Doyle over his links to Morton.

Both Scottish Labour and the UK operation use the same independent complaints procedures, and both cases were being looked at.

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

In a statement he 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.

His elevation to the House of Lords was announced only a few weeks ago.

SNP MSP Rona Mackay said Sarwar's judgement had been "absolutely appalling".

Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: "It was a shocking error of judgment by Anas Sarwar that he failed to take decisive action months ago – and instead, pathetically, tried to claim that there was no need to act because Duncan-Glancy was standing down at May's election.

"It's humiliating for the Scottish Labour leader that he was only embarrassed into sacking her by the man he says is not up to the job of being prime minister."

The suspension of Pam Duncan-Glancy lances a boil, at least in part, for the embattled Scottish Labour leader.

Anas Sarwar had been facing repeated questions since late last year over why his former education spokesperson was allowed to retain the Labour whip.

Tomorrow, at Holyrood, he was bound to be asked by journalists firstly if he had made an error of judgement in calling for the prime minister to quit and secondly if it was right that Duncan-Glancy was allowed to be a Labour MSP?

Sarwar's answer that Duncan-Glancy was only around for a "matter of weeks" after announcing she wouldn't seek re-election didn't cut the mustard - with the SNP repeatedly pressing that point home.

Now it looks like internal party wheels have been turning which has also resulted in the suspension of Lord Doyle over his links with the same man.

It is a bit of a party mystery why these suspensions have taken so long to enact - and why Lord Doyle is facing this just five weeks after being made a peer despite concerns being raised.