Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Lady. She has, over decades, shown her commitment to equality, fairness and justice in this place. I am glad to hear that she is pleased with the work we have put to paper. I assure her that I am committed to seeing this through, as I know are other members of the working group. It is absolutely our intention to put the complainant at the heart of everything we do. She is exactly right. I have heard separately from a number of people who have come to me with their concerns, knowing I was involved in this process. Often, those complainants’ stories have got into the media, and they have been hounded. That is a terrible situation for them to find themselves in, and we are determined that the new procedure will address that.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and the working group for producing a far-reaching and radical document that I hope the House and the other place will proceed with implementing, as they intend to. The report talks about a behaviour code for the whole of Parliament, which is a very comprehensive change. It also talks about a culture change in paragraph 82 and training. That underlines the shortcomings that the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs has advertised exist in our code of conduct, and the report requires changes to the House of Commons code of conduct.

I particularly commend the intention to set up a review body once all this is implemented. If I read the report correctly, that might be a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament, perhaps including lay members. Ultimately there has to be comprehensive oversight of this change and how it integrates with what we already have.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, for his Committee’s contribution. It made a very useful written submission with recommendations on the establishment of a joint committee, with staff representation, to review the workings once this system is up and running. I am very sympathetic to that idea, and the report indicates that we would like to see such a review take place once the new system has been up and running for six months. The behaviour code for all in Parliament, including visitors to this place, is designed to sit alongside existing codes and not to interrupt them. I look forward to working with him in consulting on the behaviour code.