Risk-based Exclusion

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The motion does not preclude those things, either. In fact, the first report produced by a Committee was by the Standards Committee when we took evidence. Interestingly, we said:

“First, we propose that the power to exclude Members from the precincts should form only one part of a wider, formalised risk mitigation process. The evidence we heard from comparable bodies, including the police, suggests that interim suspension is normally a last resort.”

Indeed, we went on to say:

“The House Service could, for example, if it were thought necessary and appropriate”—

I would add “proportionate” to that—

“move the MP’s member of staff to an office shared with other staff, or allocate the MP an office which has a higher degree of visibility.”

Of course, all those things could happen perfectly easily without the motion and could happen now.

I have just a couple more points. On arrest or charge, I find it problematic to land just on charge. That is very late—much later than in any other comparable body in the public sector or the private sector in this country. It is not comparable with the law of the land in terms of what most employers would have to do to be a reasonable employer.

It is important that it is proportionate—that is, first, to the crime itself. That is already met by the motion in one sense, as these measures are about sexual or violent offences. The panel might also want to consider whether we are talking about one instance or several allegations. Secondly, has there been one arrest or two arrests? Has the Member been arrested under caution? We get to various other stages long before charge, such as police bail. Are we saying that we should not even consider these measures when somebody is on police bail? That seems odd to me. I would think that is us falling short of our duty.

The panel should also consider the individual’s co-operation. If the individual Member is being very co-operative, that suggests that we would not need to consider taking major further measures. Then—this point was made earlier—we should think about who the person is that we are talking about. If they are a member of staff working in this building, presumably one would want to assess that the risk was higher and therefore one would need to consider further mitigatory measures.

I have two final points—

[Sir Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Oh, all right. I was going to try to make them final.

[Sir Philip Davies]

The hon. Member talks about bail. Presumably, the police bail could instil a condition that that person should not go within a certain distance of the person who has made the allegation, so this process is not needed. The police are perfectly capable of putting in those bail conditions.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

But let us say, for sake of argument—it is only for sake of argument; I am not referring to any individual case at all—that the allegation is that the Member of Parliament has in some way sexually assaulted one of their or another MP’s members of staff here. There are other members of staff in the building. So the police bail may refer to whether they can approach the person who made the allegation, but it would not be able to deal with all the other members of staff who operate in the same purlieu here on the estate. That is why taking the proportionate measure is important.

Earlier, I wanted to ask the Leader of the House a simple question about her own amendment—I know it is very technical and tiny—which says that the panel would be able to proceed during an Adjournment. Would it also be able to proceed during a Prorogation? I hope that she can answer that later.

Finally, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset is absolutely right—the Standards Committee made this point several times when this was being debated from the first set of proposals—that, in the end, a mandatory exclusion of a Member should be a decision of the whole House. That would be a relatively easy thing to add to this process. I note that he had an amendment that has not been selected; for whatever reason, I do not mind. If we are moving to exclusion, I think that it would be cleaner if we had a process where, in the main, the Member would normally be expected to—and would probably, I think—co-operate, but if they chose not to, it would be a matter for a motion of the House, which should be taken without debate and without amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), as I so often do. This is a very unsatisfactory process, to say the least. I endorse everything that he said.

We are where we are in terms of this particular motion, and I will mention a couple of things in it, relating mainly to the debate about whether or not the proposed Standing Order should apply at arrest or at charge. I very much agree with the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley). She was right to say that the measure would find the right balance by applying at charge, partly because, as has been said, our constituents have a right to be represented in the House of Commons—we should not forget that—but also because of the time these things take. Someone being deprived of being here because they have been arrested even though they have done nothing wrong is not just a hypothetical; it has actually happened, and they were excluded from here for a substantial amount of time. Are we completely blind to those situations? We should be completely aware of that, and we must not allow it to happen again.

I must say that I think the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) was unusually naive in his view about what might happen if we had the situation at arrest. He seems to think that if we had a panel meeting at arrest, exclusion would be a last resort, and that a whole suite of other things would be gone through before we got to that. To be perfectly honest, he has been here long enough to know that that is an absolute load of old tripe. He knows full well that the moment somebody is arrested, the panel would say, “We must be risk-averse,” and the person would be excluded straightaway. And I guarantee to him that if they were not excluded straightaway, an awful lot of people in this House would demand that they be excluded straightaway on the basis of arrest. If he does not think that is the case, I am afraid he is completely and utterly out of touch with what goes on.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, given that I have just spoken. What assessment does he think the Whips make on that basis?

[Sir Philip Davies]

Well, the point is that that is a voluntary process. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset has made clear, if somebody feels that that is not a suitable process, they can come in here. This is about us formally excluding people from here. That is a very different issue altogether—one that we should not take lightly; and one that, I suspect, is being taken too lightly.

[Rehman Chishti]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Philip Davies]

I will not, because others want to speak and I do not want to take their time.

I will raise two other points. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) is absolutely right about the fact that when this motion was originally tabled, it was about arrest, and the Government have just changed the wording to “charged” but kept the rest of it in place, which is completely unsatisfactory. Personally, for the reason that I have given, I would get rid of the panel altogether, because I suspect that the outcome would be the same on every single thing, whether arrest or charge, to be perfectly honest. I am not entirely sure what the point of the panel is. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that when the matter relates to a charge, the panel is completely unnecessary, and we should get rid of it.

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will my hon. Friend give way very briefly?

[Sir Philip Davies]

Go on then—as it is my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) is more constitutional—although still far from perfect—because whether to exclude under certain circumstances is a decision for the House, rather than a decision for the House to delegate. His amendment to this rather bad motion is at least an improvement.

[Sir Philip Davies]

There is no better endorsement than that, as far as I am concerned, so that will do for me and, I am sure, for my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley.

The Order Paper indicates that amendment (c) is expected to be pressed to a Division, and I hope that it is. It was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who cannot be here because of all the parliamentary business that he is engaged in today, but I have signed it, Madam Deputy Speaker, and would be prepared to move it. It comes back to the point—one that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands made—about this motion being sort of cobbled together with a different original purpose.

Amendment (c) is about removing proxy voting from somebody who is subject to a charge. I do not think that there is any justification at all for somebody who has been charged with a serious sexual or violent offence to be given a proxy vote, when people with far better reasons for being absent from the House are not given that privilege. It would be an outrage, in my opinion, if they were treated more favourably than other Members who had just as good a reason for not being here. I very much hope that the Leader of the House will accept the amendment, which I think reflects the mood of the House. Proxy voting is a step too far, and it is a consequence of not amending the motion when the decision was made to change the wording from arrest to charge.

I would like to say a lot more—I said last week that this debate was not long enough, given the seriousness of the issue, and I maintain that view—but I want to allow others to speak. I completely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset when he says that this is an unsatisfactory process, and if he were to vote against the whole motion, I would have a lot of sympathy with him, but I hope that colleagues accept that “charged” strikes the right balance by being fair to everybody—including our constituents, who are the most important people for this House to think about—and in terms of safeguarding the people who work here. I also hope that Members will accept amendment (c), tabled by hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and me, to scrap proxy voting in that situation. That would at least make the motion better than it would otherwise be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

Yes.

Today, just on this one day, I have spoken to two women who were raped by Members of this Parliament. That is a fairly standard day for me. I notice that they are not the people who have been mentioned much so far today. Some of them told me what they wanted me to say in this debate. I will just read out some of what was sent to me: that exclusion “at the point of charge sends a clear message to victims that not only will we not investigate unless a victim goes to the police, but we won’t act unless they’re charged, which happens in less than 1% of cases, so what’s the point?” That was essentially what that victim said to me.

The Chair of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), told us about all the people she had had in front of her. I wonder how many of the victims of these crimes came and gave evidence, or were given an opportunity to give evidence in private. I am going to stand here and speak up for them, because every single one of them wishes for exclusion to be on the basis of arrest.

The idea that an arrest can happen on a vexatious charge has been raised, which suggests that nobody in this building who has said that has ever dealt with an arrest in a case of sexual violence or serious violence. The amendment to change the motion to “arrest” happens to be in the name of somebody who, as we have already shown, is always right on this, and that of a former police officer, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). I know that in this House we are not always keen on experts, but I urge the House to understand that it takes a huge amount for somebody to be arrested. You cannot just ring West Midlands police and say, “Jess Phillips assaulted me”, and they come round and arrest me within the hour. What world are we living in? It is absolute madness. If we do not do this on the basis of arrest, we are saying that we do not trust the police officers in our country.

The hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) is not in the Chamber today—I have informed him that I will mention him. He has tabled amendments, and if the one tabled in our name falls, I will absolutely vote for his, so this is not a particular criticism of him. When we were both tabling our motions, I asked him, “What about safeguarding?” He said, “The thing is, we are not employed, so employment law does not come to us.” I asked him whether he had children or grandchildren, and I said, “Would you like it in your child’s school if one of the teachers had been arrested for rape and still went to teach your kids?” He said, “The thing is, we are self-employed.” I said, “Okay. Childminders are self-employed, so would you be happy with a rapey childminder who has been arrested looking after your three-year-old? I wouldn’t be.”

Why do we think that we in this place are so special? Why are we all talking as if all the people who work in this building do not have a right to feel safe when they walk around? The women I spoke to today do not feel safe, and they told me to come and say that. The women who work in the office on my floor all said to me, “Go and say this for us today, Jess.” Why do we think we are so special?

I notice that today the constituents of the hon. Member for Christchurch are completely bereft of representation. The argument that we would be taking away our constituents’ rights does somewhat suggest that no one in this building should ever take a day off on the slip—“Don’t be going on holiday; what about your constituents?”

[Sir Philip Davies]

First, I think we should acknowledge that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is on a parliamentary delegation. He is not being slipped in the sense that he is on holiday or whatever, and I think it would be wise if the hon. Lady reflected on that.

Secondly, given the passion with which the hon. Lady is speaking, which we all accept—we all agree about the victims—does she agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) that if somebody were arrested for a serious sexual offence, exclusion should be the last resort, or does she think that that person should be automatically excluded?

[Jess Phillips]

I guess it would entirely depend on the sexual offence, but even though I jokingly said earlier that I will be on the panel, I can recognise enough my own particular bias in this regard. I do think that exclusion would be the answer, but the truth is that so will most people.

To address the point made by the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) that this Chamber is where we represent people, are the constituents of the hon. Member for Christchurch—I am using him as an example, because the hon. Member for Shipley (Sir Philip Davies) said that he was not here—or anybody else’s constituents bereft? Are the constituents of all the people who are not in the Chamber now not being represented? The argument that keeps being made is, “I am doing it for my constituents”, but I bet that I could find people in every Member’s constituency who do not feel they are being represented particularly well.

[Sir Philip Davies]

I am sure the hon. Lady must recognise that when it comes to representing our constituents, there is a very great difference between not attending one particular debate and being excluded from Parliament, perhaps for up to two years or so.

[Jess Phillips]

The trouble is that that is what is currently happening. The hon. Gentleman, or anybody else who does not want there to be a two-year wait between arrest and charge, might like to join me in all my advocacy. When I worked in this field before I was in this building, it was not two years between arrest and charge, so maybe the Leader of the House could reflect on her party’s own record in that regard. Of course it should not take that long. I think it was the hon. Member for Amber Valley who said, “If it was quick”—well, we all want to see that for everybody involved, but there is this idea that we are superior beings who should not have to be concerned about safeguarding laws that are totally standard practice across the whole of the country. Do you know who gets excluded now? It is the person who got raped. We say, “This magical being has to be able to stay because in 1348, blah, blah, blah.” What about the person who got raped who works here?

Business of the House (13 May)

Philip Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I will follow on from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who I thought made some fantastic points. However, I want to start by commending the Leader of the House for listening to the previous concerns and coming back with a revised motion. We are particularly grateful that she has been, as my hon. Friend said, a representative of the House. She has listened and come back, and I commend her for it.

None the less, I think my hon. Friend is absolutely right when he says that two hours is insufficient for this subject. This is not about the rights of Members of Parliament alone, although obviously it is to some extent. It is mainly about the rights of their constituents, who have a right to be represented in Parliament by the person they elected. The motion—I broadly support what is in it—is designed, in effect, to deliberately restrict the rights of those constituents to have their voice heard in Parliament. That is something that we in this House should interfere with only with great care, and certainly not on the back of a two-hour debate.

With a two-hour debate, by the time the Front Benchers have had a go, set out their stall and all of the rest of it, the time left for Back Benchers is limited. As anyone can see, the motion that has been tabled is quite extensive, with a number of different paragraphs, and eight amendments have been tabled, as my hon. Friend has said. If Front Benchers want to set out their views on the motion and address the amendments, how much time will Back Benchers get to speak? I suspect it will not be very long at all.

We are not really going to have time for a debate, but I think we saw earlier—through the exchanges of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch with my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips)—that there is quite a significant debate to be had, and people will have strong opinions on different sides of the argument. The whole point of being here is that we have a debate, and surely we can all see from this timetable that we are not going to have time for a proper debate. That cannot be right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made this point about the business on Monday. I have no idea how long debate will last on the various regulations down for debate on Monday, on public procurement and agriculture, or how many urgent questions and statements there might be and all the rest of it, but it is not impossible to envisage that those debates will not last very long. We could be in the absurd situation where we have business on a Monday that is supposed to run until 10 o’clock but we rise early because the two-hour limit for this debate has been reached, with hours still to spare. Why on earth would we unnecessarily restrict the debate before the normal end of the sitting day? We should at least make it clear that we can go on until the normal end of the sitting day, if that comes later. Why can the motion not at least make clear that we could carry on until 10 o’clock?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will my hon. Friend emphasise that the debate scheduled for Monday is not any ordinary debate? It is a debate to change the Standing Orders of the House. As was pointed out to me by Enoch Powell when I was first on the Procedure Committee in 1984, in the absence of a written constitution, the Standing Orders of this House are our constitution. Are we really saying that we should change our constitution in a time-limited debate this coming Monday?

[Sir Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. In some respects, I am perhaps arguing against my own self-interests here, because the changes that the Leader of the House has made to the motion mean that I am broadly content with it. I would prefer to see certain minor changes that we could perhaps tweak out, but there are probably other Members who do not like the changes that have been instituted since the measure last appeared before the House. Their opportunity to speak against those changes will now be severely curtailed, and that is unfortunate to say the least.

I simply ask that the Leader of the House think again about this measure. We can all see that two hours is not an adequate amount of time. There is scope to have more time for this debate on something that is of great importance to the rights of Members of Parliament, but mainly to their constituents, who want to be represented in this House by the people they have elected and for that to be curtailed only where necessary. I hope that the Leader of the House will indicate that she will not move this motion today, withdraw it and think again.

Business of the House (Today)

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Go on, Peter.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend may want to bring this up afterwards, but the motions are very complicated and it might take the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), at least an hour and a half to explain to the House what on earth they mean. Perhaps he does not know—I do not know—as they are extremely complicated.

This is not about that, really. I am trying to complain about the Government’s habit of tabling business of the House motions to eat into the time for debate so that anyone with a concern about the procedure who speaks to the business of the House motion is hurting the people who want to talk about the actual issue.

Will the Leader of the House tell us that, in future, the Government will stick to the Standing Orders and allow a proper one and a half hour debate after the business of the House motion has been decided upon? It is a small but important part of our democracy that the Government do not tweak our Standing Orders to their own advantage.

We have a great Leader of the House, and he does not need to detain the House much longer. Will he just say that this will not happen in future?

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Dunfermline on securing city status, but I think that is as far as I can go in agreeing with him. He speaks of what he says is the one topic that everybody wants to debate, but my experience is that people are sick and tired of hearing about it. They want the Government to focus on what actually matters to them—the global fight against inflation and an aggressive Russian state invading Ukraine and causing huge ripples around the world in energy and food prices. The hon. Gentleman says that that is the one topic that people want to debate, but it is the only topic that he wants to talk about. I thought he might have congratulated the First Minister on becoming the longest-serving First Minister in Scotland. After seven years, he might want to accept some responsibility for the disastrous performance of the Scottish Government and what we have seen in Scotland. They have let down schoolchildren; one academic in Scotland has said that

“governing became the servant of campaigning”.

That is why their education system is in tatters and drug deaths are at their highest level, and have been for seven years in a row. That says everything about SNP Members: they are more interested in stoking division and trying to challenge the Union than delivering for their constituents.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I am obviously delighted that your campaign paid off, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Doncaster got city status, as I was born and brought up there. Next week, the Government will announce the city of culture 2025. One of the four finalists in that competition is Bradford. Were Bradford to win that accolade, it would build on the strong cultural offer it already has, including the Brontës in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), the world heritage site of Saltaire in my constituency and the fact that Bradford was the first ever UNESCO city of film. Given that the House will not be sitting next week, and that winning would provide a huge boost to the whole district, which has been overlooked for far too long, and to the city, which has been punching below its weight for far too long, will the Leader of the House speak to his Cabinet colleague, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and join me in lobbying her to announce that Bradford is the city of culture 2025?

[Mark Spencer]

I trust that my hon. Friend was in his place for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions this morning to lobby the Secretary of State directly.

[Philip Davies]

I did not get called.

[Mark Spencer]

Well, I cannot speak for Madam Deputy Speaker in failing to call the hon. Gentleman. We are always pleased to hear from him and I am surprised that he did not get called. Of course, I wish Bradford well and the other three cities that are bidding for city of culture. We await with anticipation the announcement of which city it will be. I am sure that whichever is the winner, it will be a great opportunity to visit and see the culture of that city.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman knows that the UK Internal Market Bill involves a great deal of powers—I think 70—that were with Europe now coming back to the United Kingdom and going to the devolved authorities. If we were to have a debate on standards in Scottish education, it would be about why the SNP has been running them into the ground in its period of running the Scottish Government, because the record of the SNP is absolutely appalling, as the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends know only too well. Scotland, as he rightly says, used to have one of the best records, and it is the SNP that has undermined that while it has been in government.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Back on Boxing day 2015, my constituency was terribly affected by flooding. Since that time, the same homes and streets have repeatedly suffered from flooding, which once again reared its ugly head earlier this week. It is bad enough that the same people are repeatedly flooded, but the trauma for those people is worse. Every time it rains heavily, fearing the worst is a torture that is hard to imagine. Will my right hon. Friend therefore ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to come to the House to make a statement to let my constituents know when he will implement the flood prevention measures for my constituency proposed by the Environment Agency?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The difficulties families face when they are flooded and the worry that they must have when the rain beats down again is something with which every Member of this House would have sympathy. A great deal of taxpayers’ money is being spent, and Yorkshire is receiving more than any other region—£496 million has been spent since 2015, protecting 66,000 properties. Across England as a whole, £2.6 billion is being spent on flood and coastal defences between 2015 and 2021. In March, there was a commitment of £5.2 billion to build 2,000 new flood and coastal defence schemes across England by 2027. I appreciate that that does not necessarily give my hon. Friend’s constituents the comfort that they desire, but he will have the opportunity to raise the matter with the Secretary of State on 26 November. I will also take it up on his behalf and try to get him a detailed answer on when the programme will actually start.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very valid point: anything that we send out on paper is heavily regulated, and things that are done online are almost unregulated—not entirely, but broadly. There is a discrepancy between those two, and I know that the Government are considering this matter. A debate via the Backbench Business Committee would be a good starting place to get the ball rolling on this discussion.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

One of the many awful aspects of the coronavirus crisis has been the doubling of assaults on shop workers. These people are heroes who went into work every day while we were all locked down at home, and ensured that we had food and provisions; yet, the thanks that many get is to be abused and assaulted by customers. As somebody who worked for Asda for 12 years before entering the House, I feel very strongly that the despicable people who assault shop workers should face much tougher sentences from the courts. Can we have a debate to see whether the majority of the House agrees with that sentiment and so that we can show our deep gratitude for all shop workers?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend, as he so often does, puts his finger on the right issue. Shop workers have been fantastic, phenomenal and brave, because they all stayed at work at a point when we knew much less about the disease than we do now and thought that it might have been much more risky even than it has turned out to be; they were a real frontline emergency service. Without them, the crisis would have been infinitely worse, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the tribute he has paid to them. I can reassure him that there are already offences that cover assaults against any worker, including those in the retail sector, such as common assault, actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm. In July, the Government published the findings of a call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop workers, and we will continue to work with the British Retail Consortium and other partners to stop these crimes. I pay tribute to the British Retail Consortium for the work that it has been doing to highlight this important issue, and encourage my hon. Friend and the BRC to continue raising it.

Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There are Home Office questions on Monday. I think that would be the right time to raise that important question.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Can the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State to come to the House to make a statement about flood defences? There has been a lot of focus, rightly, on places such as Fishlake, which suffered terribly from floods just before the general election, but my constituents are still waiting for improved flood defences from the Boxing Day floods in 2015. Perhaps the Secretary of State could come to the House to tell us when my constituents will get the flood defences they both deserve and need.