Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend will appreciate that this has been an incredibly difficult balancing act. All of us on the working group made it clear that the commitment to protecting the interests of the complainant would be at the heart of this. That means very often that the complainant does not want to and will not come forward with a complaint if they then run the risk of being hounded in the media and, in effect, having a trial in the full glare of the public spotlight. That was one of the core areas we sought to address. That inevitably means that there are compromises and these are matters for the final discussions about procedures, where the right balance should be secured between the public interest to know about a perpetrator and the interests of the complainant to have their privacy and confidentiality respected. It is a difficult area and we will need to find that fine balance. I am sure that it will end up being on a case-by-case basis, with very careful assessment by the independent investigator, who will of course have the right qualifications to be able to make that decision.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Six or seven Members of the US Congress and Senate have announced their retirement after sexual harassment allegations. So far, none has done so in the UK Parliament and no political party has yet required people to either stand down or retire. Does the Leader of the House agree it is important that political parties do not hide behind these very welcome proposals in terms of their responsibilities? Will ongoing complaints be allowed to be retrospectively submitted to the new system?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that it is important to have ultimate sanctions. It is obviously for individual perpetrators to make a decision about whether to resign or retire, but it is absolutely the intention of the new procedure that they will and can be forced to do so, regardless of who they are and what their role is in this place.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s other point about historical or pre-existing allegations, this was another area the working group spent a considerable amount of time discussing. There is a specific complication with making individuals liable to a procedure that was not in place at the time of the allegation. That complicates this somewhat. However, we will make sure that we are able to deal with the issues of historical allegations, even if they cannot be dealt with specifically by this new procedure.