Members of Parliament: Risk-based Exclusion

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Well, no. The evidence given to the Standards Committee—if the hon. Member has time to read it, I urge him to do so—was that an awful lot of other workplaces do something similar and start considerably earlier than at charge. For instance, there are proper issues for a school, which is probably the only place where we would properly use the term “safeguarding”, and likewise for a youth service. For someone in the police, it is likely that the police would take far more precautionary action than we do, and far more than is even being suggested here. The bit that is different for us is that the scrutiny on us is acute. However, if we spoke to a teacher excluded from school at the point of arrest for a sexual or violent crime, they would say, “It may not have been on the front page of the Daily Mail, but everybody in my local community knows about it,” so there is enormous reputational risk.

One really important point that we must stress time and again is that, in any of these instances, this cannot involve a judgment as to whether somebody is innocent or guilty—that is absolutely the case—and our processes must guarantee the presumption of innocence all the way through to the end of a criminal justice process.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend knows that I take a lot of stock from what he says on this subject, so I would be interested to know this. Is he completely content with the proposal before the House, particularly the aspect I found surprising, which is that it allows for the possibility of a Member to be excluded even prior to their arrest, basically on the word of a report from, for example, the Metropolitan police?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Indeed, trust in the Metropolitan police is not high, and that is a problem for the House at the moment. I am aware of friends and colleagues who would like to make complaints to the police but feel that they would not be listened to properly. Vice versa, there are obviously Members of the House who do not feel that the Metropolitan police would deal with them fairly. I think it is a fair point about whether this should be before arrest, but my assumption has been that the moment of arrest, and certainly if somebody is interviewed under caution while under arrest as a suspect, is the point when, again on a proportionate basis—proportionate to the alleged offence, proportionate to the risk there might be perceived to be and proportionate to the stage at which we are—we may want to take action.

I worry that, if we do not do any of this, we will leave ourselves very exposed to further reputational risk for the House. That is my anxiety. The hon. Member for Bracknell raised the question of whether somebody could be excluded without the House voting on it. My anxiety about the House voting on the exclusion of a Member is that that will almost certainly look to the public as though the House has judged that that person, for want of a better term, is a wrong ’un. That is why if my best friend were in this process—if, for instance, they had been charged, and the House authorities thought there was a significant concern and wanted to take action, suggesting they should not come in—I would say to my best friend, “You should just not come in.” Then it would be entirely voluntary, and that would protect the reputation of the House. I think that would be in the best interests of the individual, and we would end up with a fair outcome for the complainant as well.

However, I think the House has to reserve the opportunity that we may be in a situation where somebody is absolutely adamant—saying, “There’s no way you’re preventing me from coming in”—and people may come to the conclusion of replying, “Sorry, but we think you are a genuine risk to other people on the parliamentary estate, and that now trumps anything else. Consequently, if you’re not prepared to accept this, then we will have to vote on it.” However, I think the likelihood of that happening more than once in decade is minimal. I slightly worry about doing a review, because I am not sure how long we would have to allow before we had enough cases to decide whether the review was actually valuable.

A& E Departments: Staffing

Debate between Chris Bryant and Kevin Brennan

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I should be grateful if Members left quietly, if only because this debate is meant to be about the staffing of accident and emergency departments throughout the whole United Kingdom.

I guess that if general practice is the beating heart of the national health service, A&E departments are the keep-beating heart of the national health service. Everybody in the land has a particular emotional attachment to their local A&E department. Even if they hope that they will never need to go there, many of them will have, from their own family experiences, either a granny, a grampy, an uncle, an aunt or a child who has had to go to A&E and whose life will have been saved. For them, those will be such heightened moments of strong emotion that the local A&E will be vital and essential to them.

Sometimes, in valleys areas in south Wales and in other rural or semi-rural areas of the United Kingdom, A&E departments feel as if they are even more important, because people feel that they need to be close to home and the geography makes it difficult to get to the A&E in the critical hour to get the support, help and medical intervention that will save somebody’s life, so the attachment is felt deeply. There has been a big battle in my local area about the Royal Glamorgan Hospital’s A&E department. I am glad that the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board has decided to put on hold any decision about the future of that A&E during the coronavirus crisis.

There have recently been significant advances in A&E, and we need to praise those who have made those advances. Major trauma centres, which the Government introduced in England—we are soon to have one in Cardiff—have made a dramatic difference in saving literally hundreds of additional lives every year. We should praise all those who have been involved in those decisions.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate on this very important subject. Does he agree that the staff in A&E departments and across our NHS really should have the protection at work that they deserve? Does he believe that when we look back at the current crisis, one issue that will really come to the fore will be the lack of protective equipment and the lack of testing that has been available up until this point, and I am afraid is still unavailable, for many of our NHS staff?

[Chris Bryant]

Two things are vital in this key moment when the NHS is fearing a tsunami coming down the road, if that is not a mixed metaphor. The first is personal protective equipment. My view is that, frankly, every single fashion brand in this country should be devoting every minute it has to trying to deliver enough PPE for all the doctors in our A&Es. Secondly, we should be straining every sinew to ensure that testing is available for every staff member in our health service, because apart from anything else, it will mean that they can get back to the frontline faster.