Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I would be delighted to meet the head of the Parliamentary Health and Wellbeing Service. My hon. Friend is right to point out that the service has been overworked. As part of the new complaints and grievance procedure, resources will be made available, but nevertheless I would be very happy to meet the lady she mentions.

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

I bring the House’s attention to paragraph 418 of Dame Laura’s report, which says:

“In relation to allegations made against Members of Parliament, it is readily acknowledged and should be emphasised that the overwhelming majority of Members behave entirely appropriately and courteously towards members of House staff. However, their collective reputation is being damaged by the allegations of unacceptable behaviour made against some of their number and by the inadequacy of the procedures in place to deal with complaints. I have no doubt that they will regard this as intolerable.”

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a relatively small number of rotten apples, but the problem with our particular barrel is that those rotten apples are quite near the top?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Again, my hon. Friend makes a really important point. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, most of us here absolutely accept that we need to behave with the greatest of professionalism and moral authority. It is only a few who let us down, but nevertheless, when they do so, they have to be called out, counted and dealt with appropriately.

I would like to return to discussing the independent complaints and grievance procedure, which is known as the ICGS. I can report to the House that, from the launch of the ICGS in July to the end of September, a total of 51 calls were made with complaints and concerns, and a small number of investigations into complaints are currently under way. Initial indications for October show that the call rate is continuing at the same level. I can tell the House that we intend to publish the reporting data quarterly.

Vitally, the ICGS is confidential, which encourages complainants to come forward without any fear of publicity or retribution. The investigation process is also completely independent. Where the finding against any individual is so severe as to require consideration of terminating their employment, there is a clear route in all circumstances. Specifically in the case of MPs who are accused of wrongdoing, that route is currently to the Committee on Standards, which has taken steps to allow the seven lay members to have a vote in addition to the seven elected members. This is an important step. I am aware that some want to see further independence from Members themselves, and the House of Commons Commission and the Standards Committee will look at how this can be achieved while still upholding the principles of democratic accountability. To be absolutely clear: we are fully committed to ensuring that the accountability of MPs is enforced.

As I have said, ever since taking on the chairmanship of the working group, establishing the complaints procedure has been the first, and not the last, step towards the culture change we all want to see. There are three crucial next steps that we agreed earlier in the year. First, there should be an independent inquiry into allegations of bullying of House staff, and it is this report that we are debating today. Secondly, there should also be an independent review of historical allegations of Members and their staff, which I understand is to be publicly launched tomorrow. I do urge all those who have experienced bullying and harassment in any way to come forward to give evidence to that inquiry. Thirdly, there will be a review of the ICGS after six months of operation, and again after 18 months. I will be meeting with the ICGS steering group shortly to consult further on how we take forward that first review.

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[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the shadow Leader of the House agree that the crux of the problem is that, until we have a culture in this place whereby a member of staff who makes a complaint about a senior manager or a Member is confident that they are not ending their career, nothing will happen?

[Valerie Vaz]

The Leader of the House has set out the new process, so people should feel confident.

The Opposition are grateful to all those who contributed to the report. I say to those members of staff: I acknowledge the hurt that you have suffered and the courage of those who have spoken up. Those who work in the canteens and throughout the House, you undertake your work professionally and with integrity. You are helpful, creative, and supportive of Members. There is a very high standard of work here, which is appreciated. This place simply would not function without you.

I hope that the debate will do justice to the responses and the work that was put into the report, and I will highlight just a few areas. The report notes that a cultural change needs to happen. In paragraph 67, Dame Laura Cox says that,

“structural and governance arrangements have changed several times over the years, while the organisational culture has remained firmly in place.”

I know that the Leader of the House agrees that a culture change is needed and has previously said in the House that it will “not happen overnight”. However, will she update the House on how a cultural change will be measured so we know we are making progress?

Dame Laura Cox highlighted the gender and racist dimension to bullying and harassment. Paragraph 123 states that,

“some areas of the House were described as having a particularly bad reputation for sexist or racist attitudes”.

Of the 200 people who came forward to give information to the inquiry, the majority, nearly 70%, were women. The House of Commons and Parliamentary Digital Service diversity and inclusion strategy 2019 to 2022 is evidence of the House service’s commitment to ensuring that this place is a positive and inclusive environment to work in. Jennifer Crook is head of diversity and inclusion, and work is already under way. She has produced a very good report highlighting successes in, for example, talent management, and rolled out unconscious bias training.

According to the recent staff survey, staff with disabilities have the highest rates of experiencing discrimination, bullying and harassment and are less likely to agree that the House service provides an inclusive environment. That is followed by black, Asian and minority ethnic staff, particularly black British staff. The Cox report, taken together with results from the staff survey, which suggested that 18% of staff had experienced bullying or harassment in the past 12 months, most of it at the hands of other staff, and that 3% had experienced sexual harassment, shows we clearly have a long way to go before we can claim we have an inclusive workplace.

Dame Laura Cox raises the need for training. In paragraph 311, she states:

“Even those Members most implacably opposed will gain from it, despite any current intransigence.”

At the urgent question on 16 October, the Leader of the House said:

“available is a wide range of optional, voluntary training in how to carry out appraisals, how to lead an office and so on.”

She went on to say:

“Compulsory training for new Members will be introduced after the next election. It was decided that there was no consensus in favour of compulsory training for those who were already Members”.—[Official Report, 16 October 2018; Vol. 647, c. 541-2.]

In my view, if we want cultural change everyone should have training and it should be compulsory. Will the Leader of the House please reconsider, in the light of the Cox report, that compulsory training should be discussed again?

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[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the tenacity and commitment of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I do not think anybody has done more to try to deal with the situation we face. She is absolutely right that being a Member of this place is a privilege. It is like no other job. We represent our community, but we also speak truth to power. Today’s debate cannot fall shy of that.

The people who work here have a right to expect to be treated in accordance with the law, as they would be elsewhere. They want a safe workplace. The people I have worked with as a Member of Parliament, whether Clerks or anybody else, are an extraordinary bunch of people with the most extraordinary commitment to supporting the work of this place in whatever role they have. I very much welcome Dame Laura Cox’s report and I, too, pay tribute to the 200 or so people who gave evidence. Nobody but nobody today should even attempt to dismiss this report because of that enormous commitment from our members of staff.

Many staff have approached us as Members and welcomed the proposed changes, but there is a toxic lack of trust in management about whether the changes will actually come into effect. I will come on to the point about culture in a moment, but it is important to point out that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said, culture is something that we all have ownership of and all shape, but we shape it at a very high level. When it comes to shaping that culture for a working environment, staff are much more likely to see that coming from their direct management, and that direct management culture prevails for the vast majority of members of staff in this place. What has been most revealing about the Cox report is that, although there are of course issues about the behaviour of Members of Parliament, there are also significant issues about the behaviour of members of staff as well, and we should not be shy about discussing that.

Dame Laura Cox’s report talked about a culture of complacency, cover-up and denial that has allowed the abuse and harassment of staff to thrive for so long. I believe that that culture still pervades. We have only to look at the way in which the management here reacted to the “Newsnight” allegations in March: they were immediately dismissed as a “grotesque exaggeration”, yet the Cox report categorically exposes the fact that, far from an exaggeration, all those allegations are much more likely to be an accurate depiction of what is going on for too many people in this place. Indeed, the problems run deeper than just the abuse, to the dismissive way in which allegations are handled, and that has created a toxic lack of trust in senior management. Why does this matter? It matters because our staff have a right in law not to suffer discrimination and management have a duty in law to treat people correctly, and make sure that they are treated correctly. However, we also have a duty to make sure that we set the best of examples—indeed, so that we can attract an even more diverse cross-section of MPs to this place.

The current situation risks bringing the House of Commons and, thereby our democracy, into disrepute. The media revelations in the spring were a real wake-up call, but why did it take “Newsnight” to report this and to prompt Dame Laura Cox’s report? According to data given to the Cox inquiry, despite an increasing number of complaints under “Valuing Others”, there had been no findings and external investigations of bullying or harassment for the past four or five years. Why did management systems not pick this up? This is why, while the Leader of the House is right to talk about changes to process, the issue of culture and management is really important, too.

The laws passed in this Chamber are being wilfully ignored by the people tasked with running the House of Commons. The laws that we insist are enforced in the courts are not being enforced in this place. In particular, the House of Commons is subject to the law under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 on the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, as the regulator, is now threatening to take action against the House of Commons. That is a disgraceful situation for us to be in. How can we be in a situation where we are in breach of the laws that we have agreed on the Floor of the House? This is serious.

I very much welcome the clarifications from the Leader of the House on the work that she is doing to make sure that the independent complaints and grievance scheme can address historical allegations and that it will be clear to everybody that it does so; that it has built-in independence; and that things will not be delayed unnecessarily. However, Members cannot allow the Commission to cherry-pick from the Cox report. It has to be adopted in full if we are to get away from the disgraceful situation of the EHRC potentially intervening on this place.

The Cox report is absolutely clear that new processes are insufficient in their own right to bring about the culture change that we need. The report says:

“The House strategy…risks being thwarted without a change in the culture necessary to deliver it.”

Bullying and harassment continue to be regarded as a distraction from the real work of the House. Cox is absolutely explicit about the need for top officeholders to change—not in her recommendations, because of course, that was outside her terms of reference, but it is integral to the report—yet the Commission is silent on this. Paragraph 414 states:

“I find it difficult to envisage how the necessary changes can be successfully delivered, and the confidence of the staff restored, under the current senior…administration.”

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the only way to give confidence to future complainants is to ensure now that historical complaints are dealt with effectively and efficiently?

[Mrs Miller]

I think the Leader of the House has already said that that is the case.

Turning to my concluding remarks, although I see that I did not get an extra minute for the question asked by my hon. Friend—[Interruption.] To quote again from the report,

“there are a number of individuals who are regarded as bearing some personal responsibility for the criticisms made, and whose continued presence is viewed as unlikely to facilitate the necessary changes”.

The report could not be clearer. We have to make sure that there is senior management change in this place before we can make sure that the important process changes come into play. We have to make sure that the Commission is democratically accountable in the way that the Leader of the House has talked about. I believe that we also have to insulate the role of Speaker from dealing with these sorts of organisational issues, which are an immense distraction from his main role, which is to be in here presiding over impartial debate.

In summary, we really need to make sure that nobody here today can dismiss this report; that the debate is focused not just on process, but on making sure that we have the right leadership in place to fix the issues as we move forward; that we tackle the culture that has led to devastating criticism of the management of this place; and importantly, that we focus on how we can build back the trust of staff. That has to be the focus of today’s debate. We need to consider how we can make sure that the root cause of the cultural problems that we face are dealt with systematically not only by every Member of this House, but in the management of this place.

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[Alison Thewliss]

Sorry, I mean the response to the report falls short—very short—in a number of aspects.

I do not have permission to name names, but I have heard testimony from a former member of staff in this place who was subjected to offensive sexist remarks by a more senior manager, used quite deliberately to undermine her position and confidence. She did not feel she could complain, and she did not want me to raise it further, but I fear that the person who made those comments will have thought little of them and will make them again to other women in his future career. As I say, if we do nothing, this culture grows and festers, and if people do not see their behaviour challenged, they believe that it is acceptable and that they can get away with anything.

Culture change would help participation in politics in the future, but it is of limited consolation to those who have suffered injustice in the past. Ours is often seen as rough-and-tumble profession with long and unforgiving hours and an immense workload, but that does not for one second excuse the unacceptable behaviour described by this inquiry, which is far reaching and fundamental. Discourse can be robust, but the allegations we are hearing about go far beyond what is acceptable during any normal disagreement.

Huge elements of this can be changed, and the Scottish Parliament, while not perfect, set itself up to avoid this kind of culture. From the outset, the Scottish Parliament made clear its commitment to inclusive and family friendly workplace practices, with key principles of accessibility, participation and equal opportunity. As the Leader of the House mentioned, best practice was drawn upon in its planning phase to ensure that the establishment of the new legislature could learn from the mistakes and successes of other legislatures, including this place. There was a firm understanding that Holyrood would not simply be a Westminster in the north.

Promoting a family friendly culture and work environment has been a key priority of the Scottish Parliament, and that is reflected in its sitting hours finishing at 5 pm, voting being fixed at a set time so that staff and MPs do not have to stay late into the evening, unlike in this place, where sitting hours can vary hugely. We also have in this building a pervasive culture of alcohol—this has been missing somewhat from the debate thus far. We have receptions at lunchtime serving drinks and people encouraged to hang around in bars while we wait for late-night votes, and this breeds a culture where we are not behaving as professionals in this building. We are then forced to spend a ridiculous amount of time in crowded voting lobbies, which is unpleasant and unsafe, particularly when some Members have been drinking for a good part of the day.

A lot of the reporting on this has been done in dramatic tabloid language, and the culture in the past has been to cover it up and pretend that it is all fine, which has led directly to the situation today where we worry too much about the reputation of the House, rather than the people who work within it.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Is this place not part of the problem? Members of staff have complained to me about the behaviour of other Members. I say, “Make a formal complaint,” and they say, “But I’ll lose my job.” We have to remember that if someone is employed by the House of Commons or the Palace of Westminster and loses their job, it will go on their CV and affect their future employment prospects, and that is why they will not make a complaint.

[Alison Thewliss]

That is absolutely true, and it is reflected in the report in many ways. For example, people fear that if they were to complain or raise an issue, they would be seen as a troublemaker trying to upset the way things have been done—and from reading the report, it seems to me that the way things have been done absolutely has to be turned around.

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[Philip Davies]

I know that my right hon. Friend has been outspoken on that particular issue, but she is certainly not at the forefront of my mind. [Laughter.] She has very considered opinions, and I appreciate that. I am not oblivious to it. My point is that whoever had happened to be the Speaker at the time when the report was written, the same issues would have been raised in it. I do not think that it constitutes a specific criticism of this individual Speaker. This is a much deeper and more widespread problem than that. Anyone who thinks that these issues have only arisen since the current Speaker took his position knows, deep down, that that really is not the case.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Given his argument, does my hon. Friend believe that the culture in this place can change if the current Speaker remains in position?

[Philip Davies]

Yes, I do. I have no reason to think otherwise in my dealings with the Speaker. People take others as they find them. I think that this goes much wider than the current incumbent. As my hon. Friend knows, I agree with him wholeheartedly on virtually every issue, but I am afraid that on this one we must part company. I do not think it helpful to make it into a personal vendetta against one individual in the House. The culture goes much deeper than that.

Let us use the report to do something positive. Let us get people in who can help, but let us not make this into a personal vendetta on the part of people who were never reconciled to the current incumbent of the Chair in the first place. That is not helpful, and, to be fair, in many respects it does not do justice to the people whom we actually need to help: people who work in the House of Commons, either as the staff of Members of Parliament or as other staff members. We can do this without needing to go for what I would consider to be the very nuclear option that my hon. Friend proposes, which I do not think would make a blind bit of difference in itself. The problem goes much deeper than that.