Standards

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Ordinarily, I would go to the other side of the House, but it seems appropriate to call the Chair of the Standards Committee first, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

May I add my own warm tribute to you, Mr Speaker, because you have been an exceptional Speaker throughout my time in Parliament? I am sorry to contribute to this short debate, and I thank the Leader of the House for bringing forward this motion before Dissolution next week.

I assure the House that the Committee on Standards has taken the greatest possible care with all the information that was put before us. We have done our best to focus only on issues that pertain to this House’s code of conduct, and not on extraneous matters of personal and private conduct. Neither have we wanted to put any information into the public domain, other than where that has been absolutely necessary to explain the reason behind the Committee’s decision. The decision is unanimous, and we have accepted the recommendations of the current commissioner. We are grateful to her for her work, and for the work of the previous commissioner. I wish to put on record my thanks to all colleagues on the Committee, and to my Clerk and his staff.

Subsequent to our report, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) put some information on his website. I assure the House that all the points raised in that posting are addressed within the Committee’s report. I and my Committee appreciate that constitutionally, no Parliament can bind the actions of the next Parliament but our view—we have placed this on the record in a letter to the Leader of the House which is published on the Committee’s website—is that should the right hon. Gentleman be returned to the House at the forthcoming election, we urge the incoming Parliament and the new Leader of the House to pass a resolution as quickly as possible to ensure that the full period of the proposed sanction is served. I am grateful for the chance to contribute this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Forgive me, but I was myself perfectly clear on that point, although I am grateful to the Leader of the House for making it clear to colleagues. It was always intended that, if the House accepted the report, the suspension would take effect after the election. Whether the Committee wishes to revisit the issue, in the light of what the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and others have said, is, if he will forgive me saying so, a slightly different point.

[Kate Green]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. My understanding is that in the event that the right hon. Member is returned, we would like the next Leader of the House to bring forward a motion to continue the suspension, but neither this Parliament, this Leader of the House nor any Member of this Parliament can compel that. It would be a matter for the next Parliament. In so far as the next Committee is concerned, any Member is at liberty to make a complaint about the conduct of a Member at the time that he was serving as a Member. We have recently introduced new provisions around historical cases, but the Committee would be a new Committee, and would not be able simply to pick up an old case conducted by our current Committee.

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you. That was by way of a public information notice from the Chair of the Committee, which I hope is helpful to colleagues.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House—

(1) approves the First Report of the Committee on Standards, Keith Vaz, HC 93;

(2) endorses the recommendations in paragraphs 99 and 101; and

(3) accordingly suspends Keith Vaz from the service of the House for a period of 6 months.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that has to be looked into. Every possible facility should be given to those who are terminally ill and every pathway should be cleared for them so that they can receive what they are entitled to. I will take this matter up with the DWP and write to the hon. Gentleman after seeing exactly what the situation is. If it is as he says, I hope that it will be improved.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on progress in introducing the parking code? ESPEL, which operates a car park in my constituency, is notorious for its punitive treatment of motorists, and I, its industry umbrella body and the landowner seem powerless to do anything about it. Could the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent update on this matter?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), who was here a moment ago, introduced a private Member’s Bill on parking, and I have a feeling that I put my name to it when I was still a Back-Bench MP, so the hon. Lady will understand that I share her concern about the way in which some of these companies behave. What she is saying is unquestionably important. I cannot promise her a debate, but she may want to raise this issue again in relation to other matters in the Queen’s Speech.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend is a genius at getting debates in this place, so he hardly needs advice from me. He already has an Adjournment debate coming on 4 September, which I expect will be even better attended than this morning’s session. I feel that I am inadequate to advise him on how to achieve more debates, but his subject is indeed a worthy one, and I hope that his plea has been widely heard.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House is known for his courtesy, so I am sure he will agree that language describing Travellers as an invasion or a disease, contrasting them with decent people or talking of them as a problem—all of which have been heard in this House in recent months—is deplorable. Will he arrange a debate, perhaps in Hate Crime Awareness Week after the recess, on how we can use language respectfully towards everybody in this country?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I thank the hon. Lady for her generous compliment. It really is important that we use language properly, that language is effective and that language is powerful. You, Mr Speaker, control how it is used in this House to ensure that it is orderly, but the general tone should be one of generosity and kindliness, and I would always encourage that. I do not think a debate on language in Government time is likely, but as I have said, there are Adjournment debates, Backbench Business debates and Westminster Hall debates. It is a really important issue, and I would encourage and share the hon. Lady’s view that good manners go a long way.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

In case anybody was wondering, I was just eight years old at the time of the lunar landing, and I remember watching it; it was an extraordinary moment. My hon. Friend makes an important point. He rightly congratulates his college, and stresses the importance of STEM subjects. I point out that we are making major progress in this area; for example, A-level maths is now the single most popular choice among students.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Yesterday, a group of young people were involved in a serious knife attack in my constituency. One of the group was taken to hospital, and the others were taken into custody. All were aged under 18. A primary school sports day was taking place across the road from where the attack occurred. May we have an urgent statement from the Government on the effectiveness of the serious violence strategy and what Ministers are doing to ensure that we take these weapons off our streets?

Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I will not speak for too long, because I am sure the House has heard enough from me today, but I have a couple of queries, following what I said in the previous debate about this only being a staging post to our final destination.

The Gemma White report says that

“contributors to this inquiry have expressed considerable concern about using the new procedures and scepticism as to what the ICGS can realistically achieve. Many of them told me they would not contemplate making a complaint under the new ICGS procedure, because it would be ‘career suicide’… Some are concerned about the independence of the ICGS process… and the lack of clarity as to the sanctions which could be imposed on an MP.”

Those are still the issues with getting a process that we and, most importantly, staff can be confident in. Until we have a process that does not involve Members at all—I appreciate that work is going on in respect of that—staff will feel a bit inhibited in making a complaint.

The other issue is sanctions. I am not at all clear, and I hope the Leader of the House can clarify when he responds, what sanctions will be levied against an MP for a complaint being upheld under this procedure. For the procedure to have the confidence of staff, it must have proper sanctions.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

To clarify, on behalf of the Committee on Standards, we are conducting an inquiry into exactly the question of what sanctions would be appropriate in a number of different situations. We would be more than happy to hear from my hon. Friend and, indeed, all Members.

[Justin Madders]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am aware that a consultation is ongoing, but it begs the question of what will happen with complaints that are being dealt with now if sanctions have not been clarified. Presumably some complaints will be resolved before the Commission reports. If I am wrong about that, I am happy to be corrected. Will sanctions be applied retrospectively after they have been agreed, or will investigations be reopened? Those are the questions that I hope the Leader of the House can clarify when he responds.

Question put and agreed to.

Bullying and Harassment of MPs’ Parliamentary Staff

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), who gave an interesting speech. The Committee on Standards, which I chair, will be discussing Gemma White’s report at its meeting next week, and I do not want to anticipate the Committee’s views ahead of that meeting. Speaking personally, and like other Members who have spoken this afternoon, I very much welcome her report. I put on record my thanks to her for her work on it and pay tribute to the staff, past and present, who spoke to her, often about very painful experiences.

As with last year’s report by Dame Laura Cox—indeed, as with last week’s report to the House of Lords by Naomi Ellenbogen QC—Gemma White’s report does not make comfortable reading for us as parliamentarians, but we must pay heed to what it tells us. The White report reinforces Dame Laura’s message that abuses have taken place in the dark corners and closed offices of our institution. Of course, that does not mean that all, or even a majority of, Members or senior staff have been abusers or complicit in abuse—Gemma White acknowledges that many are seen as good employers—but there have been enough documented cases of bad behaviour where the House authorities and the political parties have been unresponsive to cause us significant concern.

The Standards Committee is determined to play its part in evolving a better standards system for Parliament. As we have heard, that has proven to be a complicated and very protracted process. That is partly because of the complexity of parliamentary structures, but there is no doubt that the sheer number of alternative and competing centres of authority—including, as we have heard, the House of Commons Commission, the political parties, the Government, various teams in the House administration, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the ICGS helplines and investigation services and the Standards Committee, as well as their duplicates in the House of Lords—have all made it much more difficult to capitalise on the political will that I believe exists in this place to deal with the problems that we face. The number of separate reviews that we have had, and the lack of co-ordination between them—not necessarily the fault of the individual reviewers—has not helped either. I hope that clarity is now slowly emerging and that Gemma White, like Dame Laura Cox before her, will assist us in moving forward rapidly.

I am pleased that Gemma White welcomes the Standards Committee’s current work on reviewing the range of sanctions available to the Committee, the House and the Parliamentary Commissioner. She notes that this development

“has been a long time coming.”

That is a fair comment, although we have not been short of other tasks to keep us busy in recent months. She has given us a deadline of December this year to put in place a package of reforms to the sanctions system. I assure the House that the Committee will use its best endeavours to meet that deadline, and I am confident that we will be able to put proposals to the Leader of the House, and the House as a whole, in time to do so.

I should add that the Committee’s work on this subject is without prejudice to any decisions that the House may make in response to Dame Laura Cox’s recommendation that Members should play no part in determining complaints about bullying and harassment against other Members. A working party of officials has been set up to put proposals to the Commission, and I am pleased that one of the lay members of the Committee has been appointed to it. I hope that the Committee will recommend an updated set of sanctions which are fit for purpose and can be implemented no matter who the decision-takers on sanctions are in future, whether they are MPs or not.

Other work by the Committee includes formulating a framework for considering ICGS appeals, on which we published a report in March. We have set up a formal sub-committee on ICGS matters to deal with that important and sensitive work. I am pleased to see that Gemma White comments favourably on the progress that the Committee has made in this area. As promised, we are keeping the appeal arrangements under review, and if necessary we will report further to the House on any modifications that we consider desirable. We have also set up an informal sub-committee to review the Code of Conduct and the associated Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members, which we are required to do in each Parliament. The sub-committee, which is dominated by lay members of the Committee on Standards, has been doing good work, and we intend to launch a public consultation in the autumn on proposals for revisions to the code and guide.

Our seven lay members continue to play a very active role in the Committee, and to provide an independent perspective from outside the Westminster bubble. I want to place on record my thanks to them. The House will recall that it conferred full voting rights on the lay members in January this year. Because the Committee has equal numbers of lay and elected members, and because I, as Chair, only have a casting vote, they now have, in effect, a majority vote on the Committee. However, I am glad to say that in the six months since we made that decision, no formal votes have taken place in the Committee. We are working very much as a unified team, following the consensus-seeking approach of all Select Committees.

We also plan to report to the House soon on the subject of confidentiality in relation to complaints, in the light of early experience of how the ICGS procedures have been working in practice, as well as reflecting some of the concerns of both the Committee and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards about the recent extension of confidentiality to non-ICGS cases. I can assure the House that Committee members, including me, have also undertaken the Valuing Everyone training, and I endorse the comments that we have heard about it this afternoon. I should add that I will be supporting the proposals in respect of non-recent allegations on which the House will be asked to vote later today.

I thank the House for giving me an opportunity to update Members on the work that the Committee on Standards has been doing in order to play our part in making Parliament a safe and respectful place for everyone who visits or works here.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

There is no doubt that in these changed circumstances, with different weather conditions right across the United Kingdom, including in the south-west—the seat I represent is in Devon—we are seeing just such effects of erratic weather. As Members, I think we all know of the devastation, and the highly personal devastation, that can bring when it has an impact both on people’s businesses and their homes. I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating Carol Beattie and all those at Stirling Council on their work with primary schools and the others he mentioned in his question.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

This week, we saw a report of a leaked A-level maths paper. In my constituency, there have been allegations about questions being shared when one part of the country takes exams before the same paper is sat in another. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on the security processes maintained by school exam boards? The situation appears to be deeply unfair to students up and down the country.

[Mel Stride]

I can but wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady that the situation she describes of tests being taken at different times—with questions common to both tests therefore being available from the earlier stage to the advantage of those taking the second test, as it were—is clearly totally and utterly unacceptable. I believe, although I stand to be corrected, that there have even been some arrests in relation to this particular issue, such is its seriousness. It would perhaps be an excellent subject for an Adjournment debate, with an opportunity to put such points to a Minister from the Department for Education.

Cox Report: Implementation

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. This going back decades has been discussed, including the idea of historical cases and whether they can or cannot be heard. If we do not sort out what has gone on before, we will never be able to sort out what goes on in the future, and we have to. This is not about drawing a line and hoping for the best in future. Some of the people we are talking about when we say, “Let’s draw a line on the historical cases,” still very much work in this building.

This week and last week, I have been reminded that the system still seems not to have changed much on the ground. Actually, I will go back a step and pay massive credit to the Member I cannot now call the Leader of the House, so I will have to learn her constituency: the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)—we were just discussing whether there is a North Southamptonshire. The systems that have been put in place, if used well and seen through in everything that Cox required, can be the solution, but there is currently a blockage in the system. This week and last week, I have in my diary three different incidents where I have to call or meet people. Those people’s names cannot even go in my diary, because they are so worried about further complaints and about people who either represent constituencies in this place or work in this building. This is still going on. Even with the new systems being set up, people still feel that I am a person that they should come to find out whether this can be trusted. We are nowhere near the level of trust that we need to be at in this building for people to feel that they can go forward and, without fear or favour, make a complaint about somebody, especially somebody who sits on one of these green Benches.

The argument for an independent system is won—certainly not yet in my political party, but in the system that we hope to see set up here. The Cox report clearly identified concerns about the idea of Members of Parliament sitting in judgment over any of this, and the public would have a question mark over that. That system and MPs’ involvement in deciding how the sanctions might be given out can cause by-elections. It is not an unpolitical system. It is something where politics can very much play a part.

I am really pleased that lay members have a balancing vote in the independent complaints system, but there are still real concerns about the idea that we are the ones who get the say. I have absolutely no reason to doubt the complete and utter commitment of all the people on the current Committee on Standards to doing the right thing, but I personally saw how who goes on that Committee is a political decision, because I was stopped by my political party from going on it. The Whips had put my name forward. It appeared on the Order Paper and then it was stopped. I have no idea why my political party did not wish to put me forward to be on the Committee on Standards, but I can guess. I will take it as a compliment that I am actually independent and that I would act fairly, regardless of the situation.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I place on the record that as Chair of the Committee on Standards, I would have been delighted if my hon. Friend had been appointed a member of our Committee.

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the Chair and put on record that she very much welcomed the fact that my name went forward on to the Order Paper—before it was withdrawn —so that I could have been appointed to that Committee.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I said to the hon. Gentleman on the previous occasion, I will try to find Government time. We had a debate in February, which unfortunately many hon. Members were unable to attend because they had other commitments. The subject is important; it is one of the single most important issues that face our world today. The Government’s work towards tackling global climate change has been second to none. We have reduced emissions faster than any other G7 nation. We have generated record levels of solar and wind energy. The latest figures show that we have reduced greenhouse gas by 25% since 2010, and Carbon Brief analysis shows that UK CO₂ emissions have fallen for six years in a row, which is the longest decline on record. So there is a lot more to be done, but the Government are taking action.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Last month, the Home Secretary made a very welcome announcement of new funding for security at mosques and other places of worship. Following my question in Home Office orals on 1 April, nearly 100 colleagues have written to ask for that funding to be brought forward in good time for Ramadan, which is just three and a half weeks away. Could the Leader of the House arrange an urgent statement for as soon as we come back, about what the Home Office is doing to ensure that our Muslim constituents are safe during Ramadan—a time when the community is highly visible?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises a really important point. I know that the Home Office is absolutely committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those who are at worship, at all times. If she wants to write to me following the business question, I can take up her specific question directly.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am sure that the whole House will join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to his opponent at the last election and sending our sympathies to his family at this time. He is absolutely right that, among the passionate debate and disagreement, especially during political campaigns, we all have respect for those who put themselves forward for election. My hon. Friend is right that they make an invaluable contribution to making our democracy as strong as it is.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I was surprised that there was no statement from the Government on the report this morning from the chief inspector of probation into the shocking performance of the transforming rehabilitation programme. She states that not enough attention has been given to keeping victims safe, she speaks of poor-quality work generally in the community rehabilitation companies, and she says the privatised contracts have been a failure. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a Minister to come forward with a statement to this House so that we can question him on this shocking report as quickly as possible?