Cox Report: Implementation

Debate between Chris Elmore and Jess Phillips

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. That is certainly a concern. This place has a way of reminding us how welcome we are at the moment. I have absolutely no doubt that there are people here whose processes have been in the long grass for a very long time, and that they will be allowed to go off to pastures new. Any constituency MP will know how a constituent feels when that happens in the police force, for example, when complaints are made and people are allowed to be retired off.

Lord knows we are doing an absolutely terrible job of convincing people that we are even equal to the value of the British people. Politics stinks at the moment, but we have an opportunity, in trying to do what Cox has asked of us, to show that we do not think we are above the people, that we are better than them, or that our jobs and the employment system are just too complicated for us to be able to do anything about this. We have to deal with complicated stuff all the time; our job in this building is to deal with really complicated issues. We cannot keep falling back on the idea that this is too difficult, simply because some people work for us, some people work for Parliament, some people work in this bit of the building and some others are journalists, for example. We have to deal with people when they behave badly.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right that if we do not deal with this, people will get away with things, which will breed a culture in which such things are acceptable if someone is a Member of Parliament and in which Members can behave in such a way towards their staff or to staff across the estate. Although not many Members are involved in all this, if we do not have an independent system, it is that breeding of distrust that will allow this culture to develop, to fester and to continue to grow over years to come.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. I want Members in all political parties—let us not pretend that this is not happening in all parties—and all the institutions of Parliament and politics to know that a truly independent system should protect us from the charge that we can do whatever we want and that we will stitch things up for our own benefit. At the moment, it does feel a bit like we can still do that.

Speaking specifically about my party, I do not know why there is ever any pushback against the idea of complete and utter independence when it comes to complaints, certainly those around sexual harassment, bullying or racism. When we stand up and speak or go on Twitter or go to work, we should be held to account, but not by somebody who can give us a job or who we can give a job to, because independence protects both the claimant and the person making the claim. I honestly do not understand why we are so afraid of it.

The other issue that constantly comes up when discussing how we handle such systems is the idea of a third-party complaints system and how we can take up complaints on the behalf of people who are vulnerable and/or terrified to come forward. Such a process has still not been ironed out in this place. If a Member sees something in the bar or somebody comes and tells them something—it happens to me a lot, and I have to struggle with the things that I know, which I often wish I could unknow—it is unclear what to do in those circumstances. The response is often, “There is not very much that we can do unless somebody comes forward, and they will have to make statements,” but there needs to be something in the system that is better for third-party complaints.

I have worked with the FDA throughout the whole process from the original complaints to the Cox report and all the different elements. I share the frustration of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke about there being another consultation with another group of people, because there seems to have been endless different reviews into different sorts of people who might come into this building. The FDA’s response to the Cox report included designs for perfectly reasonable independent systems with appeals processes that are completely fair and balanced for people both within and outside this building.

This argument goes around a lot, but there is an idea that we MPs have unusual lives, that we know best and that how systems work cannot be understood without MP involvement. I suppose that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is the example that is always given. It is a good one, so I can understand that argument. I am not suggesting for one second that there is any design that will not have built into it the idea of vexatious complaints, which are plentiful—I have had them from other Members of Parliament, for example. I understand that that has to be built into the system, but we should want to give up some of the power over the decision making.

Turning to the House of Commons Commission, I am quite heavily involved in all this stuff—I am knee deep—but I do not really know what the Commission is and/or does. I do not know whether there is meant to be a Back-Bench representative on it, or whether it is just party political. Somebody once told me that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was the Back-Bench representative, but, meaning no offence to him, I did not elect anybody to that role. I have no idea how the Commission works and how I could work with it, and I think we need to look at the level of transparency. We also need to look at how the Commission works with the Committee on Standards and the Procedure Committee. Having all these different things makes normal people who want to do the right thing think, “I can’t be dealing with this.”

We have a real opportunity, as has been said, to leave the House in a better place than we found it by creating clarity on the structures and power lines to get this right. No matter who our friendships are with and who holds power in this place, we should never fear making and/or supporting complaints against those we like or those we think do a good job in other regards. We have to be honest and fair.

The Cox report is clear and does not beat about the bush in what it asks for. I am not entirely sure what has caused the delay. It certainly was not caused by the will of the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire, and it was not even caused by the will of the House. The House, although sometimes with clever planning, has largely voted through the report’s recommendations. I am not sure why it is taking so long, and we have to ask ourselves what we will do about it and how we will speed it up. It definitely needs speeding up.

I absolutely love the House of Commons, and I think parliamentary democracy is the greatest form of democracy in the world. We have the best democracy because we are directly linked to our constituents. There are very few countries in the world where, on a Friday, a person can go and have a chat with their representative. Unlike in Ghana or India, say, we can genuinely have a cup of tea and listen to what is going on in people’s lives. It is precious, and it needs to be protected against the very dark forces we see at the moment.

We should never give those who wish to damn our parliamentary democracy the argument that we are somehow stitching things up and that we are an elite establishment force who do everything to line our own pockets. We should never give those arguments any credence, because I will not be told by the likes of Nigel Farage that he cares more than I do about the people and about the people who work here. If we do not do something, he will have every right to say those things.

I urge the new Leader of the House to do something to make this happen, and to make it happen quickly.

Domestic Violence Refuges: Funding

Debate between Chris Elmore and Jess Phillips

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jess Phillips]

It is a totally untenable situation. I understand that we all have to cut our cloth to meet our needs; however, I never hear Ministers just say, “We can’t afford this.” If that is the reality, they should come out and say it. We cannot say that we will do something about the problem, when the reality is laid so bare across the country.

I would stake £100 million on the fact that the first page of the Minister’s speech is about the £100 million that the Government are investing to prove their commitment to the problem of domestic violence. He has time to amend that now; otherwise I will owe him £100 million. Where the hell is the money going? By all accounts it is stuck in a local authority commissioning problem in most cases, which should be a warning for the future. I am not seeing any extra money. What I am seeing is 90 women and 94 children turned away from refuges every day. I am seeing Birmingham City Council removing 2 million quid from their supported accommodation budget in 2020, including refuge accommodation. The local drop-in services for victims across the city have already gone and the housing and homeless advice provided in local neighbourhood offices has also gone—but then so have the neighbourhood offices.

Where is the £100 million? Has the Minister’s Department done an assessment of how much local councils have taken out of domestic and sexual violence services in the last seven years? The £100 million cannot be a number that people say at the Dispatch Box; it needs to mean something. Although I am not normally a betting woman, I will go double or quits with the Minister that, in fact, much more than £100 million has been taken out of local services.

I pay tribute to the 118,000 people who signed Women’s Aid’s petition to stop those changes. The specialist women’s sector have all come out to say that the proposed refuge funding changes will potentially cut a third of all refuge beds. We must listen to the sector and think again. In total, Women’s Aid estimates that 588 bed spaces will be lost—places that would have supported 2,058 women and 2,202 children during this year. When added to those who were already turned away, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said, the result is 4,000 women and children being turned away from life-saving services that they desperately need.

I will add my two pennies’ worth—or my £10 million; I seem to be in over my head financially—and say that is not that complicated. We must make refuge accommodation a statutory requirement of local authorities and give local councils exactly what that costs, along with guidance and standards. We have written those before and it is not rocket science; we used to have them when I first started. We used to require councils to provide one bed space for every 10,000 of the population. I remember filling in the very dull monitoring forms myself. Let us look at what is actually needed and fund that.

We cannot just let some councils opt out. I have been a local councillor; in fact, I oversaw much of the vulnerable adults commissioning. Local councils care, but if there is a homelessness problem and a pot of money that will pay to solve that regardless of the actual needs of those who need housing, councils will take the path of least resistance. Local commissioning practices, which often lack domestic violence expertise, have severely damaged specialist refuge provision. In the context of major demand for refuge and other short-term services, budget constraints and pressures on local authorities to improve homelessness provision, there will be little incentive to commission a range of specialist services that meet differing needs. Instead, this one-size-fits-all model will further encourage generic, short-term housing that can be provided at lower cost but does not deliver the specialist support of a refuge. I will not bore hon. Members with details of what a murder costs the taxpayer, or how much money we spend on victims of violent crime in our A&E services. I am bored of saying how much money would be saved if we got this right. I have been saying that for years and I will say it for years to come.

I ask the Minister to do the following, and I am sure he will recognise that I will keep on pushing until he agrees, so he could save us both a lot of time and effort: he must halt the proposal to include refuges in the new funding model for short-term supported housing services, at least until the Government’s comprehensive review of refuge funding has been completed in 2018. I ask him to work with me, Women’s Aid and specialist refuge providers to design a new model that will provide a long-term and sustainable funding solution for refuges.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a hugely important and passionate speech on this subject, which I know she cares so much about. She has mentioned lots of services in England, but could I take her to Wales for a moment? The Welsh Government have devolved responsibility for many of the areas that she is discussing. We have the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, which brings consistency, quality of service and joined-up service provision for women and children who are seeking refuge, and I am sure that there is a similar situation in Scotland. Does she agree that the Government need to learn from devolved Administrations about this work? Also, the Welsh Government have allocated an extra £500,000 to tackle some of the cuts coming from consequentials in relation to refuge and housing benefit changes linked to domestic violence cases. Does she share my view?

[Jess Phillips]

As somebody who moans about how everything is so London-centric, I recognise that I am a bit England-centric. I apologise for that. When I worked in a refuge, we always rolled our eyes a little at the standards in Wales and Scotland. We used to say, “We wish it was a bit more like that here.” One particular area of Wales seemed to get all the innovative projects. Scotland absolutely leads the way in promoting the message that domestic abuse and sexual violence are completely intolerable. Compared with England, Scotland has always had the run on the cultural debate. The Governments of all the devolved nations and the Westminster Government need to work together to ensure that we do not have a postcode lottery, which is exactly what we have now.

The final thing I wish the Minister to commit to is a big one. I want him to make a clear commitment that no refuges will close or have to turn any women or children away as a result of the new funding model. The domestic violence and abuse Bill will, I hope, be a great thing, and I will support the Government in making that so. It would be a shame if we had to seek to amend it to include mandatory funding for refuge accommodation. If the Government get this wrong, it will be a stain on their record. They have always committed morally to this problem, although they have perhaps found committing resources a little more difficult.

I want the Minister to focus on the dancing, laughing 11-year-old. I want him to imagine her and her family support worker working through her trauma. I want him to see her mom slowly but surely take over the reins, so that that little girl can be free from her responsibility as the protector. I do not want to see her living in any old bed in any old service, away from her things, her school and her friends, with nothing but a bed. I do not want her to be the protector anymore—I want it to be us. She was magical. Her name was Aliyah and I will never forget her.