Parliamentary Representation

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I agree with that point and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. In most Parliaments where there is a decent level of female representation there is at least positive action.

Our party has succeeded to some degree with the positive action that we have taken. I was on the A-list, as it was known, before the last election, along with many of my hon. Friends. That system enabled a big increase in the number of Conservative women that we now have in the Chamber. As many Members will know, it was a system whereby half of the list of candidates from which an association could select were female. We went through a few other developments on that theme, and later in the cycle of selections there was a system whereby associations had to have gender parity at each stage of the selection process. I commend that process for enabling men to have a proper and fair chance while ensuring that women were supported in overcoming some of the more extensive barriers that they face.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I will just take my hon. Friend back to the point of selection. Is it not also the case that the selection processes of all parties, but especially our party, do not only favour men but men of a particular social and professional background? That has been one of the biggest issues in expanding representation. This debate is about not only gender, but social class, and frankly our associations all too often—not in the case of my constituency, I am pleased to say—represent a particular social class.

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend makes the very good point that, of course, this debate is about more than gender; I could not agree more. In my area, the black country, I do not feel that Conservatives have any sort of class bias in favour of people from higher socio-economic backgrounds, but I can see that in some parts of the country that bias might exist and we must certainly stamp it out.

Gender is an area where it has been easier to improve the selection processes, but we must work equally hard on improving the access to Parliament for other disadvantaged groups. We can do that by fostering a sense of inclusion—a sense that Parliament is an inclusive place—and by our parties respecting that when they select candidates.

The Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme has delivered a good start in equalising the number of women and men who come into Parliament at a young age to work. Almost 50% of the paid internships supported by the scheme have been for young women, which is a good thing. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South mentioned the access to elected office for disabled people fund. There have been 60 applicants to that fund and 29 people with disabilities, who probably face greater hurdles than anybody else in entering Parliament, now have full funding, which is great progress. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your support for all that work, which I hope will continue.

I will say a little bit about the sort of changes that we can make when we get here. The number of lesbian and gay people on our Benches now makes quite a big difference. Ministers across all Departments are very busy people. I am glad to say that all the Ministers I know are fully committed to diversity and equality, but the issue is not always at the top of their mind—they have very busy lives and many responsibilities—so it is up to Back Benchers. I applaud many of my fellow gay Back Benchers on keeping the Government to their promises. There has been the legalisation on gay marriage; the removal of historical convictions for consensual sex between men; the pardoning of Alan Turing; and support for anti-homophobic bullying campaigns in school. There are many other examples, too. It is because we have more diversity that we can make that sort of difference, and that is why we need more of it.

I want to talk about what we can learn from business. In business, we have seen some success in the “Women on Boards” programme, which has very much been led by the Government and the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). Now, 25% of non-executive directors on boards are female; that is up from 16%. I can see business outstripping politics if we are not careful. Of course, I hope that business wins the battle to get more diversity and inclusion. It realises that it will not win corporate battles by relying on the talent pool that used to win in the past, and that areas of great shortage, such as engineering, need to attract more women. Some 75% of an organisation’s customers and employees will not be white men, so its decision makers should not be, either.

There are many ways to lead. Lloyds Banking Group has set a target: it wants women to be 40% of its senior executives in five years’ time. Procter & Gamble has a big programme on developing women leaders globally. Thomson Reuters has a female management academy. Those organisations recognise that women need support and training, and a champion at board level to enable them to fulfil their potential. I see an opportunity there for politics in Westminster. I think that we are all aware that HR at Westminster is perhaps a little antediluvian, compared with HR in industry. We need to learn lessons from these organisations, which do not just set targets, but have committed people dedicated to making those targets a reality. On those programmes, women are identified and put into positions that are known as feeder jobs, in which people can acquire critical skills that they will require at board level. What I am saying is that it is not enough to get greater diversity in Parliament; we then need career progression, which needs to be managed and led from the top. There is a great opportunity there, and I urge that point on Members on both Front Benches.

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[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). I particularly agreed with the final part of her speech. She was entirely right to say that we do not always help ourselves in this place. For those of us who do not come from particularly political backgrounds—I did serve as a local councillor for a while, but that was very different from this job—the torrent of abuse that we often have to put up with and the invasion into what were previously perfectly normal lives can be difficult to take. It has made me question on more than one occasion whether I want to continue doing this.

This has been an interesting debate. As I intimated in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), I want to talk about social class. Much has been said about gender. This place is under-representative in terms of gender, race and sexuality, but it is also under-representative in terms of social class. That is not often spoken about. There is an intense debate about all-women shortlists. I have always come back at people by saying that there is little use in replacing a privately educated, middle-class man with a privately educated, middle-class woman if the person who misses out is, for example, a working-class, northern mechanic. That does not increase diversity in this place in any real sense.

The only tag that I am interested in applying to myself, apart from the Conservative tag for the purposes of the election, is a working-class tag. I am proud to be from a working-class background. I am the son of a school secretary and a foundry worker. My dad lost his job in the recession of the early ’90s and we spent a considerable period on benefits. He later got a job as a market gardener, which he still does at 69 years of age. I could not have asked for more loving or hard-working parents.

I attended a local comprehensive school in Hull. It was so bad that it was closed down twice. I am probably the one and only Member of Parliament who will come from that school.

I come from a completely non-political background. Most of my family voted Labour. I had a great-granddad who was apparently something of a communist agitator in the ’30s. He was the only political person in my family. The rest of them were Liberals, apart from my grandma, who was a Tory.

I am proud of that background. I am also proud to be the first member of my family to go to university. My parents were the first generation in my family to buy their own home. My grandparents all grew up and lived until they died in social housing or private rented housing. We are all the sum total of our experiences. I am proud of that background, not that I like to whine on about it too much.

I have also been a teacher, which makes me very unusual—a working-class, northern Tory from the public sector. My last workplace was a primary school and that was very under-representative as well, but in that case it was men who were under-represented. It is not only this place that needs to do more to be representative.

Without wanting to whine on, let me say a little about the challenges and difficulties of getting here for someone who comes from a normal background and does not have any money behind them. I was lucky in that I ended up on the parliamentary A-list. I always joke that it was because I turned up for the interview in a frock, but it was not. I hope it was because the party saw that I was working-class—I will not say normal; we will leave others to judge that—and from a profession that was not well represented on these Benches. However, that was largely irrelevant to me because I would have been able to stand in my area as a local candidate.

I was lucky that the selection processes for 2010 had changed somewhat, but in all parties our selection processes still favour people who come from a certain professional or educational background. At many difficult comprehensive schools, pupils simply keep their heads down and try to get on with surviving school, rather than putting themselves forward for things that might exist in other places such as debating societies—not at my school—or wanting to be something called a head boy or a prefect. We did not have anything like that. In many difficult inner-city comprehensive schools, pupils simply keep their heads down and get used to not raising them above the parapet, but the selection process for getting to this place is the complete opposite.

Selection used to be a case of having to make set-piece speeches—who does that benefit? As a school teacher, I was okay doing that; I just thought I was speaking to a load of five-year-olds—actually, they are more frightening that the selection executives of local Conservative associations. However, it certainly feeds into the fact that a lawyer or a barrister will be more used to doing that kind of thing and feel more comfortable with it. We must recognise that the processes sometimes have an in-built advantage for certain people.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend is not making a speech against the selection of old Etonians is he?

[Andrew Percy]

No, not at all. I am making a speech in favour of ensuring that we select the best people, and create processes that allow the best people—from whatever background or social class—to come forward and succeed.

A lot of the time, we end up with non-local professionals who come in and take the seats. They often do a very good job, but that sometimes disadvantages local candidates whose hearts may be a bit more in their local area. As somebody who came to this with no personal or family wealth, I spent three and a half to four years as a candidate fighting for a marginal seat and not knowing whether at the end I would achieve my aim of getting elected to Parliament. That is a big risk that would put off many people, particularly if they have small children.

The financial commitment is huge. I was lucky to have a very supportive association, and to get a lot of support from the Conservative party, for which I am grateful. I had a really good chairman and agent, Councillor Rob Waltham, who was there to provide support where necessary. One of my local councillors, Caroline Fox, lives round the corner from me, and I would not have survived the three and a half years without her constant support, whether in the form of meals or saying, “I’ll give you a hand in the house,” or whatever. I would not have got here without people such as them.

The time commitment and the impact it has on a career is massive. As I said, I was a school teacher, but I started teaching part time in order to try to achieve my aim of winning the constituency from the sitting Member. That has a massive financial impact, and an impact on my career. Had I not won the seat I would have been greatly disadvantaged and gone back to teaching part time in the primary school where I was when I was elected. That is a great job to have, but it would have left me financially much worse off.

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. One thing that was always a bit unfair before we had fixed-term Parliaments was that prospective parliamentary candidates were disadvantaged because they had to prepare for three possible timings of election campaigns, whereas Members of Parliament had a better idea and were more financially secure. Does he agree that fixed-term Parliaments will be a great help in creating a more level playing field for people wanting to get into Parliament?

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely, I could not agree more. Those of us who had been selected early had the prospect of the 2007 general election, which did not happen. I remember thinking at the time, “Please, Lord, just let this election happen”, and that was only 12 months into being the candidate. I wanted it to be over.

There was then the constant question of when the election would come. From a career point of view, what could I say to my head teacher? I was very lucky at Berkeley infant school to have had a lot of support from the deputy head teacher, Sarah Shepperson, who was also my job share. She was there to take over, and was happy to take over, from me if I was elected. That uncertainty—will the election be in three months’ time or six months’ time?—is a killer. I completely agree that fixed-term Parliaments at least deal with that side of it. They do not deal with the prospect of spending three-and-a-half years flogging what is ultimately a dead donkey, so we need to bear that in mind.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I just wanted to follow up on the hon. Gentleman’s point on some of the difficulties that face people if they stand. Recommendation 37 of the Speaker’s Conference states:

“The Government should legislate to enable approved prospective parliamentary candidates who are employees to take unpaid leave, rather than resigning their employment, for the period from the dissolution of Parliament”.

That is just one step towards making it possible for more people to stand.

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely. That deals with the issue during dissolution, but unfortunately it does not deal with the preceding three-and-a-half years. I think it was estimated on ConservativeHome that the average cost to a candidate was about £40,000. That is not only from having to stomach the cost of large parts of one’s own campaign—feeding the students who come out and help; they are even poorer than the candidate, allegedly—but from the loss of the income that would have come from career advancement.

Despite all that, I am glad to have got here. Lots of other colleagues got here too. I am lucky that my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), is a fellow local working-class lad, as is my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) is a former McDonald’s employee. She trained me at McDonald’s in Hull, when I was 16 and she was a student—she was a taskmistress, but we will not go into that. She is the first Tracey to have been elected to Parliament. I cannot claim to be the first Percy, as one of them tried to blow this place up. I am assured that there is no family connection, although the Whips have often wondered whether that is my ultimate aim.

I want to say something on the role of the public, on expenses and on what Parliament is like. I do not care about people’s background: I treat people as they treat me and I think it is great that we have Members from a whole range of backgrounds. I get sick of being told that I am in a posh party. That really does rankle with me, because there are plenty of Conservative Members who are not posh and there are plenty of Labour Members who are.

This institution is a bit odd. It is not like real life. That is partly because of the nature of the environment in which we operate. It sometimes feels very much like a private members club. I remember going into the Tea Room for the first time and being told, “You can’t sit on this side, because that’s where Labour Members sit.” When I go to Starbucks or Mae’s Tearoom in Goole, I sit wherever there is a spare table, so that seemed like a strange thing. With the wooden panels, the way people speak, the cliques and all the rest of it, it is a bit like a private members club. I know that you, Mr Speaker, and others here have done a lot to try to challenge that, but there is still more to do. The processes are a bit stuffy. If one asks a question, even to Officers of the House, one can be spoken to as if it is a terrible question or as if one is an imbecile—which I may be.

What do we do? We could get people interested from a young age. I was a bit odd in the sense that I was interested in politics at William Gee school in Hull—not many pupils were. I had that interest and drive regardless of wealth, but we have to get people from different backgrounds in here through paid internships. We also need to avoid tokenism. I was disgusted with the debate on which party has the most women MPs who are retiring. I understand that a greater percentage of women MPs on the Labour Benches have said that they are not standing at the next election than have those on the Conservative Benches—I believe it is 13% compared with 11%. That whole debate was thoroughly filthy. We should also establish non-ministerial routes for career progression, so that there is an alternative for those who do not want to move forward.

Finally, the public have a role, too. Unfortunately, driven perhaps by the expenses scandal—justifiably in some cases, not in others—there is something of a hate campaign against politicians. The judgment is constantly made that we got into Parliament only to feather our own nests, milk the expenses system, or, in some way, sell favours to our wealthy friends. Well, that is not the case for the vast majority of us, if any of us. Every institution, including this place, has its bad apples over the generations, but the constant torrents of abuse and the questioning of our motives is a real disincentive for people who might otherwise come here and want to stay here.

MPs are, ultimately, normal human beings, but when we try to come across as normal, we are told “You are only doing that because you want to be seen as normal.” We cannot win. When I went into the kebab shop in Goole at 2 am one night, one of the patrons there, although thoroughly lovely to me, told me that it was a scandal that I was in the kebab shop at two in the morning. The disconnection between what people think politicians are and what we really are must change, and the public have a role to play in that.

I am just someone who happens to do a job. This is the job that I do now, but before I did this job I was a teacher, and before I did that I did other jobs, including working at McDonald’s. I am still a human being. I still have a family and friends as everyone does—as we all do here. We are all human beings. Until the agenda of hate against politicians ceases, we will not get more normal people into this place, because the only people prepared to put themselves forward will be people who are a little bit odd.

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[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I will certainly do my best to stick to that, Mr Speaker.

I want to contribute to this debate from the point of view of someone who is perhaps by all accounts regarded as being a member of the class that is too represented in this House: someone who is white, male—

[Andrew Percy]

From Lancashire.

[Mr Nuttall]

Originally from Yorkshire, if you don’t mind, but I will come to that in a minute.

I come to this debate from the perspective of being white and male and, because I was a solicitor by profession before I entered the House, I would be widely regarded as being middle-class. That points to the archetypal criticism that is thrown at Members particularly on the Conservative Benches: it is said that our Benches are stuffed full with white middle-class males.

That is not the whole story, however, because we need to look more widely than that. We must look at a person’s background. I came from an ordinary working-class background in the north of England—in south Yorkshire, where my father was a steelworker in the rolling mills in Sheffield. On that score, by all accounts I am underrepresented in this House. So statistics can be made to prove anything really. The statistics show that there were 48 solicitors among the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Members elected to the House in 2010—some 7.7% of all Members—so we are certainly over-represented. We should not try to ensure that every group in society is equally represented; that cannot be done.

I was a solicitor, but I regarded myself as a small business man. As a partner, I was running a small business. I had responsibility for finance, marketing, personnel, administration, complying with regulations and so on. By that score, I should be regarded as having been a small business man. Incidentally, when I was running the practice, more than 90% of the 40 or so staff that we employed were women. I remember one occasion when we had all gone out for an evening meal. I was the only gentlemen among 20 or 30 women. At the end of the evening, a guy came over to me and said, “Crikey, I don’t know what you do, but I wish I had your job!” He was amazed to see me with all those ladies on the table.