Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)]

I beg to move,

That this House endorses the recommendations of the Working Group on an Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy; and asks the House of Commons Commission to authorise House officials, reporting regularly to a steering group of Members and others, to undertake the work necessary to establish:

(1) a Behaviour Code for Parliament that covers bullying and harassment, and sexual harassment, and applies to all persons working for or with Parliament, or who are lawfully on the parliamentary estate;

(2) an independent complaints and grievance scheme to underpin the Code, together with associated policies, appropriate sanctions and the contractual arrangements necessary for delivering the scheme;

(3) particular procedures to deal with reports of sexual harassment, including the provision of a specialist Independent Sexual Violence Advocate;

(4) a system of training to support the Code;

(5) a human resources support service for staff employed by Members of Parliament or jointly by political parties, delivered by a third-party provider, and a handbook for these staff;

and to identify any amendments that may be necessary to Standing Orders and the Code of Conduct, for the approval of the House.

The working group was convened by the Prime Minister last November—supported by all party leaders—to address the serious allegations of abuse and harassment in Parliament. I announced the publication of the group’s report before the February recess, and I hope that Members have now had the time to consider the report’s recommendations in more detail.

We are all agreed that there is no place for harassment, abuse or misconduct in Parliament. We need to ensure that there are robust procedures in place so that everyone is able to work with the dignity and protection that they deserve. I believe the working group’s proposals do just that.

During its work, the group took extensive evidence, both in person and in writing, from a wide variety of stakeholders, including parliamentary officials, staff of MPs and peers, trade unions, academics, authorities on sexual violence, and legal professionals. The group also conducted its own survey, which was open to a wide range of people and included a number of passholders who had not previously been asked for their experience of bullying and harassment.

Many people have devoted a considerable amount of time to this work, and after more than 100 hours of discussion, consultation and consideration, I believe we have a set of proposals for the House to consider today that will fundamentally change the working culture in Parliament for the better.

I would like to turn now to these proposals, and I will briefly set them out for the House. They are as follows. First, Parliament will agree a shared behaviour code. This will apply to everyone on the estate, or engaged in parliamentary business regardless of location, and will underpin the new policy. It will make clear the expectations for the behaviour of everyone in the parliamentary community, and will be consulted on on that basis. Secondly, the new complaints and grievance procedure will be independent of political parties.

Thirdly, it was acknowledged that sexual harassment and sexual violence are different from other forms of inappropriate behaviour, such as bullying and intimidation. Therefore, separate procedures will be agreed for those looking to raise a complaint regarding sexual harassment and those with a complaint of bullying. This is an important distinction, and while everyone has acknowledged the significance of complaints of sexual harassment, evidence from staff made it clear that instances of intimidation and bullying are in fact more prevalent. Fourthly, therefore, MPs’ staff require proper human resources advice—something that has previously been lacking, and that will go a long way to helping prevent and resolve workplace grievances.

Importantly, the new system will be based on the principles of equality. It will be confidential and fair to all parties. It will be in line with the laws of natural justice, and it will command the confidence of all those who use it. The working group took advice at an early stage that, rather than reinventing the wheel, we should work with, and build on, the many sound processes and systems already in place.

Today, we are bringing forward a motion that will enable the House Commission to authorise House officials to take forward the group’s recommendations and implement our proposals in full. This is a big step towards creating a more professional environment and a Parliament that is among the best in the world in treating people with dignity and respect at work.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I commend the Leader of the House for all her work on this important report. She will agree that Parliament should be a beacon of best practice, rather than running to play catch-up. Will she confirm that that means we need to make sure that these procedures relate to everybody on this estate? That includes, crucially, making sure that they extend to our constituency offices—to visitors to constituency offices—as soon as possible. I know we debated that in the group, but will she reassure us that this is a real priority for her going forward?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I certainly pay tribute to the hon. Lady, who was an assiduous contributor to all the work of the working group, and I thank her sincerely for her dedication to it. Of course, we recall the happy hours spent debating that very point, and we concluded in the end that it is a priority to ensure that the behaviour code—the protection—extends to all those who come into contact with Members of Parliament. But we concluded that, in the immediate future, we should focus on bedding in a new complaints procedure that will deal with the Palace of Westminster and our work as part of our parliamentary duties, and that once that is bedded down, we should have a review six months into its operation of how we should deal with others who come into contact with MPs, where there is that tricky grey area of where someone’s public life is and where someone’s private life is. I hope the hon. Lady is reassured by my once again making a commitment that we must look at that. She is exactly right.

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

It is just a few months since Parliament faced a wave of allegations of bullying and sexual harassment, in an atmosphere in which it was at times hard to distinguish real and serious cases from the proliferation of accusations and rumours. It exposed the lack of a credible, transparent and robust system for addressing legitimate complaints and grievances about bullying and sexual harassment. It led to the establishment of the working group and its report, which I fully support. The report is carefully drafted and reflects a great deal of thought and discussion.

The working group has proposed first, the adoption of a new shared behaviour code for all who work in Parliament and its Members; and secondly, the introduction of a new independent complaints and grievance policy to underpin the behaviour code. This, not surprisingly, concentrates on creating new rules and new procedures for investigating incidents and complaints, not least to try to address the present hotch-potch of arrangements for different categories of people and the glaring gaps in the system, such as the oversight of how we MPs employ and care for our staff.

The working group has rightly spent a lot of its time discussing and defining what constitutes the bad behaviour that must be called out. But there is also a need to address how Parliament arrived at this situation—how a culture of tolerance towards bullying and sexual harassment has become embedded and was left substantially unchallenged until now. Very few people who come into political life and to work in Parliament—at whatever level and whatever capacity in this building—are bad people, and most are appalled by the culture that has been exposed.

So how have we let this happen? After all, MPs are already subject to the House of Commons code of conduct. As employers, we are already covered by employment law, and there is the Respect policy to protect staff of the House. It is clear, however, that there needs to be a wider and continuing discussion about the positive attitudes and kinds of behaviour that we want to promote in Parliament and in public life, and what the values and principles are upon which those positive attitudes and behaviours should be based.

The remit of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I chair, includes oversight of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the ministerial code, the civil service code and the special advisers’ code. More broadly, much of PACAC’s work is concerned with leadership and governance in the civil service and public bodies, so we have done a lot of work on this area.

In December, PACAC submitted evidence to the working group, drawing on the work that PACAC has carried out in other areas. This was in the form of a letter to the Leader of the House, which she kindly acknowledged, although it was not included among the record of written submissions received by the group. I know that it was substantially discussed, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), the spokesman for the Opposition, for drawing attention to it, too.

Some of the reasons for our failures are practical and procedural, and the working group has made great strides to address these. However, it is also clear that there is confusion among MPs and others about what behaviour should be subject to public scrutiny and what should be regarded as entirely private. As we argued in our submission to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards’ review of the House of Commons code of conduct last year, this confusion is not resolved by our current Commons code—far from it. PACAC set out the fundamental ambiguity about whether our Commons code of conduct was intended to function as a set of principles governing the whole of Members’ behaviour, which would naturally extend, to a degree, into the private sphere of MPs’ conduct, or simply as a set of regulations, mostly about financial disclosures, relating only to an MP’s public role. The 2015 code states that it does not seek to regulate what Members do in their private and personal lives, yet it is clear from the recent controversies that it is not always possible to keep the two as separate as many of us would like.

The risk now is that the new behaviour code will again be mainly concerned with rules and regulations and new enforcement procedures, but if that is just patched on to the present system, which has manifestly failed on at least one of its main objectives—to promote public confidence in the standards we observe in Parliament—we should not be surprised if problems continue to arise. The working group is right to promote a system of training to support the new code—there might be problems with persuading some colleagues that they should be subject to the training, as I will come to; it is easy to put such a thing in a document, but there might be practicalities when it comes to persuading colleagues to participate—but what about extending that to training about what the seven principles of public life actually mean in the lives of all public figures in this place?

[Caroline Lucas]

I cannot wait to find out whether the hon. Gentleman agrees that in order to persuade colleagues to undertake training some kind of sanctions might concentrate people’s minds—for example, having pay docked, or something similar.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am so much more in favour of persuasion than coercion. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. We could force MPs to attend a training session, but what kind of attitude would they have towards that training if they did not want to do it? Let us take a step back and think about how we want to do this. I agree with the hon. Lady, however, that unless we promote conversation and understanding about the principles and values that should guide behaviour, the risk is that confusion about what is acceptable will persist.

Rules and regulations are, of course, important, but PACAC’s work has shown so often that when rules are not underpinned by clear principles and values that are understood, discussed and talked about, the outcome is a preoccupation with compliance with the rules rather than with upholding what reflects the values and principles we want upheld. The road to damnation is all too congested these days with people arguing how their conduct was “within the rules”.

[Mr Jenkin]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady, and I so much want her to win this argument and win hearts and minds, rather than have to resort to coercion, which would be so counter-productive.

To avoid just being preoccupied with compliance in the future, both the regulations and the principles and values that we want behaviour to reflect must be clearly set out and adjudicated. Perhaps only a breach of the rules should attract sanction, but nevertheless there needs to be some authority—we suggest, in respect of MPs, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—who would at least call out people who are failing to live up to the principles and values we have all signed up to. We also argued in our submission that the rules should be adjudicated by a separate person with appropriate legal expertise—the appointment of legal advice to the commissioner is a really good step in that direction, because the role of the commissioner as a thought leader is perhaps more important than her role as an adjudicator of rules.

The working group recognises the need for comprehensive training for MPs, peers and staff to help them to understand and prevent harassment and sexual abuse and to assist professional practice and Members in their position as employers. It is essential, however, that the work to embed the values outlined in the behaviour code throughout the parliamentary community be led by leaders, including MPs and peers themselves, and not delegated to support staff, who will not have the authority to carry out the kind of training that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) referred to earlier. The culture of an organisation is the responsibility of its leaders. We parliamentarians must be the champions of change, or it will not happen, and we must be held accountable for its success. We cannot delegate this vital governance function to anyone else, and nor will Parliament secure public trust if we seem incapable of exercising effective governance.

[Caroline Lucas]

What concerns, if any, does the hon. Gentleman have about the role of the Standards Committee in identifying what is a relevant sanction? Does he share my concern that the Committee, being partly made up of MPs, might be open to the accusation of MPs marking their own homework, if essentially it will be MPs making the final decision on whether a colleague is expelled for long enough to lead down the road to recall?

[Mr Jenkin]

All these ideas for what sanctions should be available are good ideas, but the accusation of marking our own homework is an unavoidable consequence of the constitutional position of this House and the other place. The advice on the basis of which we mark our own homework must, however, be much more explicit, which is why the provision of legal advice to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is important. In the end, adjudication on far clearer legal principles by someone with juridical experience of judging evidence and rules, such as a retired judge, is preferable to this rather vague arrangement at the moment. That is not to criticise any past or present commissioner; it is just that we ask that person to take on an enormous responsibility—adjudicating rules and evidence—for which they might not have had much training or experience. It is only “one” of the qualifications of the job, as opposed to “the” qualification in respect of a legal adviser or separate adjudicator. I hope that that answers the hon. Lady’s question.

On the introduction of an independent complaints and grievance policy to underpin the behaviour code, I am delighted that the working group has recognised the need to change procedures to ensure that all levels of inappropriate behaviour can be addressed proportionately and effectively. It has also recognised the need to ensure that appropriate support be available for both complainants and alleged perpetrators and, crucially, the need for a human resources service for MPs’ and peers’ staff. I would like to endorse these conclusions, the latter of which was also included in the PACAC submission to the working group.

Like the expenses failure in 2009, the recent scandal is largely about a failure of our own governance, and this stems, to a significant degree, from a failure by Parliament to establish means by which we can be more mindful of ourselves as an institution. As always, in reaction there is a cry for tougher, more comprehensive rules and tougher sanctions against those who break them, and this is undoubtedly important. Good governance is also, however, about much more than this, and we now have an opportunity to have a much more positive conversation about the values we want to promote and which we expect public leaders to live by. I hope that the proposed behaviour code will clearly set out those principles and values, and that the review and scrutiny of the new system’s success will assess how successfully they are being embedded in our attitude and our behaviour.

This reform also needs to be properly integrated into a reformed House of Commons code of conduct. I know that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has said that there will be changes in the code as a consequence. She emphasised that the working group had agreed that there should be a review of these recommendations once they are implemented, and I am grateful for that. PACAC recommends that the review should be overseen by a Joint Committee of both Houses, which should also include representatives of unions and employees’ organisations such as the working group. Its work should also cover the codes of conduct of both Houses. I fear that if such a review is not conducted and we fail to integrate the new arrangements fully with the existing arrangements in both Houses, we will not have established the stable and robust system for the future that we all wish to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I am on slightly thin ice here, because I am not 100% sure of my facts, but I am fairly sure that the lay members do not vote. Although I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that having them there is a great step forward, I still have concerns that MPs will be seen to be voting on their colleagues, even if we have had a perfectly independent and good procedure up until that point. I still think that is a weakness.

[Mr Harper]

We just need to think through how this works. The ultimate sanction of either expelling a MP or suspending them for a period where the recall provisions would kick in would be a decision for the House, not for the Committee on Standards—the whole House would be voting on it. Obviously, the House would be furnished with the report from the parliamentary commissioner and the report from the Committee on Standards. The valuable change we made when we introduced lay members was making MPs aware that, even if the MPs on the Committee had taken a certain view, the lay members can have their views expressed in the report of the Committee.

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a sad irony that, in a year that marks the 100th anniversary of the first women winning the vote, Parliament has been under the spotlight as a place in which women, in particular, face so much harassment and mistreatment. As we know, one in five people working in Westminster report that they have experienced or witnessed sexual harassment in the past 12 months, and twice as many women as men report incidents of harassment. It was a privilege to serve on the cross-party working group that was set up to respond to that routine sexual misconduct and, indeed, the concurrent routine failure to handle complaints either fairly or, in some cases, at all. I join others in paying particular tribute to the Leader of the House for her leadership and commitment to seeking consensus on the recommendations from the working group.

The report will set up a support system where previously there was none. It will also set in train the process of establishing an independent framework in which complaints can be heard. Crucially, anyone who reports sexual misconduct will have access to a complaints process that is specifically designed to differentiate between such cases and bullying. That was the first and arguably the most important change that the working group pressed for. Complainants will have access to someone with expertise in supporting those who have experienced sexual misconduct—someone who understands that complainants must be in control when it comes to the next steps and who will fight for their rights to be upheld.

Parliament should lead by example and not take yet more power away from those who make complaints, as happens repeatedly elsewhere. I am pleased that that is reflected in the working group’s recommendations. I think that this is progress, and it was possible largely because one of the country’s best-qualified experts in sexual harassment had an advisory role on the group, which meant that our work and decisions were informed by both evidence and best practice. Huge thanks must go to her, but also to the whole secretariat for its tireless work and to all the experts who supported us. I agree with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) about the importance of the participation of staff representatives in our deliberations: it made the process far more effective and inclusive.

A complainant-centred approach is just the start of this procedure. The next steps are of equal importance, especially the question of sanctions. To some extent that is in the hands of political parties, and I welcome the commitment that all the parties have made to reviewing and improving their own processes. We in the Green party have committed ourselves to referring sexual harassment cases to an external body with relevant expertise. That is how we will try to ensure that there is independence and transparency.

I would like to make the case, however, that smaller parties are at something of a disadvantage in resourcing those more robust systems for training and constant evaluation, and I ask that Parliament be encouraged to look at this on the grounds that there should be some element of funding for political parties and this will be a good place to start. I made that point at the working group meetings. Previous complainants and MPs have told me that they have zero confidence in their parties dealing with cases fairly or taking appropriate action against perpetrators and that the threat of a by-election will be enough to kill off the prospect of suspension or other sanctions.

A vast amount of work must be done to overcome the years of sweeping under the carpet that have brought us to a place of such distrust and despair. No political party is perfect, and I am certain that my party will have its ongoing learning to do as confidence in procedure and a more vocal discourse on harassment rightly encourages more people to come forward. Today, I want to pay tribute to Labour and, in particular, to all the women who have shown the courage to raise this in the Labour party. The challenge for all political parties is to be brave enough to accept that no party or organisation is exempt from this, but that together we can work to challenge the culture of harassment and it can be changed if we are committed enough to doing that, and we must prioritise the voices of those coming forward over party reputation.

The working group is clear, however, that many people experiencing sexual misconduct would not be protected by party policies even if those policies were the very best possible. That is why we have recommended the development of a shared and binding behaviour code that covers everyone working in Parliament, including all MPs, peers and parliamentary staff. That code, which will be developed in the coming months, is absolutely crucial. Volunteers, staff employed by political parties, contractors and officials working in Parliament will all be entitled and held to the same high standards of treatment, and it will cover behaviour in any designated place of work, or in the course of parliamentary duties or activities at home and, crucially, also abroad. The working group was not able in the timescale to reach agreement on how best to protect visitors to constituency offices, but I was reassured that the Leader of the House said earlier in the debate that that would be a priority for her.

We have had quite a bit of debate about the role of the Standards Committee, and while I appreciate that the inclusion of lay members on it improves the situation, the recommendation in the report about looking again at how it works is important. There is a risk of how this looks to people looking in from outside this place, and if it seems to them that the outcome of the complaint is in the hands of politicians who might well have a vested interest in not taking it any further, that will undermine all the good work we have done to date. There may be a perception that the system is left open to abuse by the Whips or political parties, the political string pullers and the other career makers or breakers. That flies in the face of what constitutes best practice and is utterly at odds with the stand-out principle of an independent system that underpins the working group’s report. This risks perpetuating the lack of trust that is already keenly felt by the staff these new procedures are supposed to protect and risks further reputational damage for Parliament by opening us up, quite rightly, to accusations that we are dragging our feet or letting perpetrators off the hook.

We may have made huge strides in the past 100 years, but we still have a patriarchal political culture that denigrates, bullies and discriminates against women. A complaints mechanism that is fit for purpose will not radically transform things overnight, but it will make a big difference, and it will send a loud signal that we recognise the problem. That difference and that signal will, however, be fatally undermined if the independence test falls at the last hurdle and MPs are left deciding on recall and other sanctions.

I want to say a few last words about culture change. I have been heartened by the number of Members on both sides of the House who have stressed its importance. It was not formally within the remit of the working group, but I am glad that we strayed into it, because that was the right thing to do. That shows that we have an opportunity to start to dismantle the power inequalities that exercise such a damaging grip on politics and to replace them with a culture founded on dignity, equality and safety from harassment—a culture that goes further than merely sanctioning those who have not yet grasped why grabbing someone’s knee without permission is a problem but that also seeks to educate.

I am sorry that we did not manage to get agreement for compulsory consent training during this Parliament, although I am glad that we have the famous kitemark by any other name—we decided not to call it a kitemark—and I think that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire should be glad that we still have the idea of a naming and shaming device. None the less, that could still mean that proper, compulsory consent training does not start until 2022, and it is not right that staff and visitors to the parliamentary estate should have to wait another five years to be guaranteed safety in the workplace.

I want formally to put on record that I believe we will have failed all those who have experienced sexual misconduct and all those who experience it in the future if we do not continue the momentum that has been started in this working group to take radical steps when it comes to culture change. The immunity once enjoyed by the very powerful and influential is starting to wear off, but perhaps only because we are under a spotlight and because right now there are loud, strong voices for change. Those loud voices need to continue to be heard, and this issue must not be allowed to be kicked into the long grass.

We have heard the argument that only those who employ staff should need to undergo training, but those kinds of arguments must not be allowed to gain traction. Every peer and MP must learn about consent and about bullying. They must understand the power that they hold and the weight of their actions. That education must be ongoing, and delivered by experts in tackling misconduct and bullying. Crucially, and sadly, I believe that this training has to be accompanied by a system of financial penalties imposed on those who fail to co-operate—as has been recommended by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee—that could include withholding pay and allowances. The systems and processes have to have teeth; otherwise, they will be rendered meaningless.

Unfortunately, serious sexual harassment and bullying are endemic in Westminster, and we have to call this out, name it and shame it at every turn. The behaviour in this Chamber is part of the problem, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I know that you and your colleagues will continue to show leadership in that respect, as well as demanding much more of colleagues.

I want to echo those hon. Members who have already talked about the importance of ongoing evaluation, review and development. We must ensure that, as we go along, we are tracking to see how effective our new procedures are. That good tracking must also include cases that are not taken forward. We need to devise mechanisms for capturing the ones that do not even come into contact with the system. I disagree profoundly with the witness whose evidence to the working group was essentially that we do not have a problem because no one has ever reported one.

I shall say a final few words about complainants who wish to remain anonymous. We have protected that right and at the same time reflected the importance of being able to build up a picture that includes those cases. For example, if one individual is accused by a number of people, that is a pattern of behaviour that can be investigated further, whether or not formal complaints are made. We must of course uphold data protection rules, but I am pleased that we have found ways within that framework to pay attention to cases where the complainant chooses to remain anonymous.

The working group report does not go as far as I would like in some areas, but I am proud of the extent to which we have signalled a zero-tolerance approach to bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct. Making politics a world that is genuinely attractive, accessible and safe for all, irrespective of gender, race, sexuality or background, is a prize from which society as a whole can only benefit. I am reassured by the response that we have heard from both sides of the House today that this is something that we can do and that we can make a real difference.