Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alison Thewliss

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank the Leader of the House; the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz); and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for their comments on these very serious issues; they have very much set the tone for the debate. I commend Dame Laura Cox for her report and every single person who has contributed to it and felt that they were brave enough to come forward to speak and share their experiences, as traumatic as they no doubt were. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) cannot be here today—he is in his sick bed—but he very much agrees with what has been recommended in the report, and we in the Scottish National party give our backing to its findings as well.

When my hon. Friend last spoke about this topic in this place, he said:

“Historical patriarchy practically oozes out of the walls”—[Official Report, 16 October 2018; Vol. 647, c. 534]—

of this building, and I absolutely agree. I have no doubt that the ingrained masculine culture in this institution is a key factor in the shocking cases of bullying and harassment that have been brought to the attention of the House. This behaviour has to stop. Those perpetrating such bullying need to be under no doubt that their behaviour is unacceptable.

I question what the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said in an intervention about people knowing, of course, that their behaviour is unacceptable; I am not sure that they do. I think that is part of the problem and why I very much agree that training needs to be put in place, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned, because if we are not aware of the impact of our behaviour, we are not going to change it.

[Bob Stewart]

I absolutely endorse what the hon. Lady says. She is probably right that the people who are bullies do not even realise that they are bullying. It is tragic, but they do not, and they need that pointed out and to be educated.

[Alison Thewliss]

Yes, I agree. Some people may be well aware of what they are doing and of the impact of their behaviour, but some may not. It is time that we were brave enough to point that out to them, and I will mention that later.

The report is damning. It has the potential to be very damaging to the public’s trust in the procedures and legitimacy of this place and of us as elected Members—a trust that has already been thoroughly ravaged by the expenses scandal a few years ago. It is vital that we take this report seriously and treat all those who spoke out with the absolute respect that they deserve.

I agree with the Leader of the House that solving this problem is a non-negotiable course of action, and we have to act now before any further damage is done. As well as the horrific personal toll that abuse and harassment take on individuals, there is the wider impact, as this culture has led to the discouragement of women in politics. The gender balance in this Parliament is nowhere near good enough. Although we have a record level of female MPs in 2018, it is still less than a third of the total number elected. Many women I come across say, “Oh, I couldn’t do your job,” and they do so not because it is a fundamentally difficult job—some aspects are—and not always because of the hours or the distance, but because of how they perceive the culture of this place. They see Prime Minister’s questions as men in suits shouting at one another, and they see no place for themselves here as a result.

Dame Laura Cox’s report is particularly enlightening on the broader culture in which this situation has been able to fester. She describes it as

“an excessively hierarchical, ‘command and control’ and deferential culture, which has no place in any organisation in the 21^st century.”

This culture is our biggest issue as policy makers. It is no exaggeration to say it has wide-reaching detrimental effects on society. Unfortunately, trickle-down patriarchy has been much more effective than trickle-down economics has ever been.

There is gross over-representation in this place of a certain demographic—namely, upper-class, white men in suits. The report makes reference to certain public schools and Oxbridge universities as having a disproportionate influence. Of course, there are many among this demographic who are dedicated public servants whom I take no issue with and who work tirelessly for their constituents, and it is not my intention to single out any one person or party, but it is irrefutable that over-representation in one area leads to limited understanding of the experience of others.

I have spoken at length in this place about the terrible practice of retro-fitting women into policies. Women are not an afterthought to be tacked on to the decision-making process. That is how we have ended up with welfare reforms that make matters worse for abused women and immigration rules that discriminate, and it is why we have the two-child policy and the despicable rape clause—because these policies were not made to reflect the lived experiences of women.

It is really important to look at ways we can change the misogynistic culture in the House. Many women in my constituency and elsewhere would make fantastic representatives or members of staff, but without serious change they will not put themselves forward in a culture that does not respect their skills and experience. My former colleague Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, when she was elected to this place, was subject to woofing noises in this Chamber. If that is the example being set by Members, it reflects very badly on us all.

The Cox report described the experiences of female staff:

“Some women described always being asked to buy the coffee or make the tea, or take notes of meetings, for example, or being humiliated in front of colleagues by comments about why they needed to work or have a career if they had a husband, or ‘why do we need another woman in here, we already have two.’”

It is clear that the systems in place—the Valuing Others policy and the revised Respect policy—are not fit for purpose and need to be disregarded. We need to move on to something better.

A lot of the focus has been on the behaviour of MPs, but I want to be absolutely clear that this culture has deep roots. A lot of it is built on class hierarchy and misogyny, and bullying would appear to be rife throughout this institution. Those at the bottom of the wage scale in this place are those at most risk. I am deeply concerned about the caterers, the cleaners, the contractors—those people who are not as visible to the public as we are but who as a result are so much easier for the House to ignore. I want to ensure that their voices are heard in all future policies, and I want them to feel they can challenge unacceptable behaviour, regardless of who it comes from.

We need to recognise, too, that our own staff are vulnerable by dint of how they are employed. After all, how does someone challenge their employer directly and deal with something effectively within a very small team of staff? I have heard several times how MPs have treated their staff, and I think we all need to get a good deal braver in calling this out when we see it; not doing so allows it to continue. We need to stop making excuses for people. On page 141 of the report, Dame Laura highlights how unlikely we are to criticise our fellow MPs—the Leader of the House mentioned this, too, in the context of our procedures. We need to think about how we do this, without fear or favour and without risking our own personal relationships—a lot of us in politics grew up together and have those friendships and relationships.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alison Thewliss

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Registering with Companies House seems to be the easiest thing possible. It is baffling that anything else, such as a tax return, a passport application or a driving licence application, needs to go through the gov.uk verify scheme, but Companies House does not have that requirement. Just tightening up those rules would help hugely both to ensure the accuracy of the information and to clamp down on those who wish to abuse the system. It is in all our interests to make sure the system is accurate, but it is not accurate.

Worse, there are only about 20 people at Companies House policing some 4 million firms’ compliance with company law. There are no proactive checks on the accuracy of the information submitted, which, as the hon. Member for Oxford East has just said, allows a significant amount of false and misleading data to be submitted to the companies register.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady says there are no proactive checks at Companies House, but if an outside person challenges an entry, surely the people at Companies House have to check it out. It is a criminal offence if an entry is wrong, is it not?

[Alison Thewliss]

The difficulty in all this is with enforcement. As the hon. Member for Oxford East pointed out, it has been very difficult to get anything to happen in the case of “the chicken thief”. The only person to be prosecuted so far is a whistleblower, which does not lead me to believe much will be done to those who abuse the system. The volume of data at Companies House makes such abuse very difficult to tackle. Indeed, investigative journalist Richard Smith has flagged up such things and has found it difficult to get any action. If a person submits the wrong name and address on their form, either deliberately or accidentally, how is the agency supposed to track down that person to get them to correct the information?

Not making the system accurate allows hon. Members to stand up in this place and say that transparency of registers does not work, but we know it does work if it is done properly and if we invest in it properly. We need to be careful to make sure that our own integrity is right, because if we are leading on transparency and beneficial registers across the world, we need to make sure that what we are doing here—the intention around Companies House—is what is carried out in practice. Companies House needs more resource to allow that to happen.