Sexual Harassment in Parliament Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Leader of the House
Chris Stephens
Main Page: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)Department Debates - View all Chris Stephens's debates with the Leader of the House
Sexual Harassment in Parliament
Chris Stephens Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
Similarly, I am very happy to meet the union, and I look forward to hearing from the hon. Lady. There should be an opportunity for a troika, a quartet, or perhaps something larger—I don’t know. It is important and should happen sooner rather than later.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Many employers, as well as independent grievance procedures, have stand-alone independent bullying and harassment policies, so that complaints of bullying and harassment are dealt with separately under a different procedure. Is the possibility of a separate policy being explored, and does the Leader of the House agree that trade unions, if they have any Members’ staff coming to them with complaints, should be invited to bring them to you, Mr Speaker, and herself?
Andrea Leadsom
As a constituency MP myself, I am certainly aware that some trade unions have done excellent work in protecting their members from bullying at work, and in doing so they fulfil a vital role. As for how we should go about resolving our own House issues, I incline towards a two-House solution. I think that there should be an independent grievance procedure, allowing anyone to make any allegations about bullying, intimidation, sexually inappropriate behaviour and so on, rather than separate streams of activity.