Daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess welcomes increased police powers to protect MPs but says measures don't go far enough
Katie Amess said the changes don't "address any of the questions" the family had over how her father was allowed to be killed
The daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess has welcomed increased support handed down to police forces to help deal with rising level of threats against politicians but says more still needs to be done.
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Katie Amess called the announcement "well overdue" but conceded it "doesn't address the fundamental failures that led to the horrific murder" of her father.
Sir David was killed after being stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea in Southend in 2021.
His killer, Ali Harbi Ali, was later found guilty of murder and preparing acts of terrorism and claimed he targeted the MP over his vote for airstrikes on Syria.
Speaking to LBC News' Jonathan Ray, Ms Amess said: "I think that the announcement of this is definitely long overdue, but unfortunately it really doesn't address the fundamental failures that led to the horrific murder of my dad.
"We can't just be monitoring online abuse. It needs to be identifying where the threats are, sharing the threats throughout all of our institutions - the police, local schools, hospital wards, wherever there might be people that are being deemed as a threat.
"We do welcome greater security for the MPs, but this doesn't actually address any of the questions as to why this was allowed to happen to my father."
Ms Amess was speaking after Kim Leadbeater MP, the sister of murdered MP Jo Cox, said the safety of politicians safety is in a "much worse and less safe" state than it was in 2016 when Jo was murdered.
Last month, the Government appointed a deputy chief constable from Cambridgeshire Police, Chris Balmer, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for defending democracy - establishing a new national democracy protection unit.
Ms Amess continued: "We always hear of promises after what happened to Jo Cox and what happened to my dad, but let's hope this isn't just more papering over the cracks and putting more taxpayers money into something that isn't actually going to figure out what the issues are."
Reiterating that the new measures don't go far enough, she added: "My father was doing his job, you know, and he, he lost his life for that.
"Unfortunately, if it's just going to be words and reports, we don't need more words and reports.
"We actually need action and we need people on the ground that are getting to the nooks and crannies of the reasons why, why people have been let down by the system and what practically we can do to stop this happening again."
Asked about the possibility of introducing security screens at MP surgery drop-ins, Ms Amess said the situation would have to reach a "very, very dark time."
"Being a member of Parliament means you are there to serve your constituents and you should be there whenever they need you," she added.
"My father was always out and about meeting people, shaking their hands, attending school services for them, church services with his constituents, going into hospital wards to visit them.
"If we take away the human contact act, how, how can you still be serving your constituents as well as you should be?
"I think that we need to stop these things happening before it gets to that situation. Like with my father, they had six years to stop this happening.
"The guy was going up to Westminster with a weapon, scoping out people."
Ms Amess told Jonathan that her family regularly had strangers come to their house including one man who put lit matches through the letterbox.
She added: "My dad was always calling the police and saying that there were issues and they completely ignored him."
MPs reported 4,064 offences to the Metropolitan Police’s Parliamentary Liaison Team between 2019 and 2025 – with malicious communications, harassment, and criminal damage to a building the most commonly reported crimes.
Ms Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley since 2021, said she considered her career choice on a daily basis as politicians face "threats and abuse almost as a matter of course now".
She admitted that she and other MPs, had "lots of contact with the police", had extra security at her office and at home, and carried "two or three different safety devices" on her.
The threats and abuse had become "normalised" among parliamentarians and often had a more “profound impact” on their staff, families and friends, she said.