Business of the House

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is a genuine expert in procedure and how best to improve a Bill, and he is right; there is no time for any of the usual niceties.

As Members will know, my job as Leader of the House is to ensure, before introducing any Government legislation, that it has been considered carefully from all angles by the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee, which I chair. It is also my job to ensure that legislation is given adequate time for scrutiny and consideration by the House.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Traditionally, when legislation is rushed through this House, the other place gives consideration that has not been given. What measures will the Government take to ensure that there is proper and detailed consideration of the Bill in the other place?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said, it will be a matter for the other place, and the Government will have no involvement in that whatsoever, so I am afraid that I am unable to answer that question.

Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about changing the management of the House and not just the processes. I will come on to that, if he will bear with me, but I want to first finish talking about what is currently available, because it is incredibly important for all those who want to come forward with a complaint.

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

The point raised by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is a very salient one. We spend an awful lot of time looking at processes and procedures, writing down codes and adjusting rules, and very little time thinking about how we change the culture. It is not about the management of this place; it is about every single right hon. and hon. Member in this House. We lead this place, and we set the example and the tone. The question is how we want the governance of this place to change the culture, and that falls on us, not on some obscure committee elsewhere to take that responsibility away from us.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I will come on to governance issues, but I would like to finish talking about the processes that we have put in place since July this summer.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

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.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will just continue for a moment.

If the second motion is carried today, the final recommendation, fully costed, of the sponsor board and delivery authority will come back to this House in 12 to 18 months for a vote. Following that vote, the House-approved business case would immediately progress to the design phase.

The Palace of Westminster will, in all cases, remain the home of our Parliament. That has always been the plan. To make it absolutely clear to all hon. and right hon. Members, full or partial decant will not take place until 2025 at the earliest.

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

The Leader of the House is completely right that we do not yet have anything like enough information to evaluate which option the House should now pursue. I was predisposed to support the decant proposal, but I regret to tell the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), that I took my name off her amendment, having done some preparation for this debate. I do not think we begin to have the information, but setting up the delivery authority is a no-brainer for a project of this scale and nature.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. The need for action is absolutely vital. Each of the motions provides that opportunity, but it is vital that the House itself makes the decision.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for also making a mistake.

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. I agree that whatever needs to be done urgently must be done urgently to address the present situation, but as we graft more and more new bits on to current systems, will we not be in danger of adding to the confusion that already exists? The Public Affairs and Constitutional Administration Committee, which I chair, has submitted evidence to the review of our present code of conduct, which is being conducted by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Much of the current problem arises from confusion about an inadequacy in the code.

As my right hon. Friend develops her proposals, will she agree that whatever is put in place now, there needs to be a comprehensive assessment in the longer term—perhaps by a special Select Committee such as the House of Commons Governance Committee, which was formed during the last Parliament—of what is being introduced and how it should integrate with IPSA, the Standards and Privileges Committees and so on?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his Committee’s work on this issue, and for keeping me up to date with its investigations and reports.

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend that there is not intended to be any confusion about the outcome of the working group’s activities. We aim to create an independent complaints and grievances procedure that will be run within the House, using as a reference point the work that has already been done here, as well as the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and, potentially, support from existing organisations in the House. We intend to end up with the independent helpline, which will continue to provide immediate guidance and signposting, and an independent grievance procedure that will enable action to be taken against Members, staff, peers and so on. In addition, however, there will always continue to be the parties’ own complaints procedures. There will not be a mixture of those different processes; they will be separate, and very clearly set out. I hope I can reassure all Members on both sides of the House that there will be extreme clarity about how individuals can express their grievances.

Sexual Harassment in Parliament

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very happy to give that absolute assurance. There should be no place here on the estate, or in our constituency offices, where people can be abused or their allegations not taken seriously. I can assure the hon. Lady that I will be meeting Lord McFall to discuss the specific issues around the Sports and Social bar tomorrow.

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

Thank you for your statement, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for the consensus so far in all the statements made and questions raised in these exchanges. Let me point out that we would not be having these exchanges if the document I have here—the code of conduct of the House of Commons—was actually working and the machinery around the code was effective. May I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the fact that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is conducting a review of the code of conduct? The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has submitted quite radical suggestions about how the code, and the machinery around it, should be reformed so that we spend far more time in this House as Members of Parliament experiencing proper professional development and understanding the code of values at the front of this document—what they actually mean and how we should live those values as Members of Parliament—than just concentrating on all the other pages, which are about declarations of outside earnings, Members’ interests and all the other stuff that seems to preoccupy the regulatory authorities of this House.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that there is already a code of conduct. I am grateful to him for sending me his Committee’s report on this matter over the weekend. I will certainly look at it carefully over the next couple of days.