Business of the House

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House. It is a great pleasure to see him in his place after all that he has done for the Conservative party in his distinguished career. The Government naturally sympathise with those people who have been affected by the recent flooding and the terrible impact that has on their lives. As we were hearing earlier, we have put in place a wide range of recovery schemes for affected homes, businesses, farmers and communities, and £2.6 billion is being spent in over 1,000 flood schemes across the country, which will protect a further 300,000 homes by 2021. I think that in this case prevention is better than cure. There will be relevant questions to the Local Government Secretary on Monday.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

May we have a debate about standards in public life and the consequences when Members of either this place or the other place abuse staff or each other? Following the incident that I raised on the Floor of the House this week, I have had a number of members of staff raise concerns with me about the way they are treated. Further to that, I am sorry to say that the Member from the other place who I have complained about has now launched a homophobic attack on me in the press. This will be reported to the police, and I know that I and others consider this to be a hate crime.

I know that the Leader of the House and the Speaker take this matter very seriously. I have a position of great privilege and I am able to raise this, but we must set the best possible standards from this place for other LGBT people and, indeed, our staff, to ensure that we send a message to say that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable here or anywhere else.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I hope that I will not breach the normal order of this House if I say that the attack on the hon. Lady was utterly disgraceful and that she is clearly owed an apology by the noble Lord for what he said about her. I think that everybody who heard about that was shocked by the comments that he is reported to have made and has not denied. I think they are really appalling. I know that we are not allowed to criticise Members of the other place except on a specific motion, but I think that under these circumstances we are allowed to stretch the rules.

As regards the initial complaint, everybody should treat our members of staff politely and with normal good manners. The staff have a duty to look after us and protect us, and we must respond to them in kind. The purpose of this place is to facilitate legislation. We are here as legislators, and it is incumbent upon us to lead by example. That is why the behavioural code has been set up as it has. Everyone should be respected and valued. We should recognise that, by virtue of our office and by virtue of the 70,000 people who have sent us here, we have a status that we must not abuse through ill manners. Indeed, the greater one’s status—you are a model of this, Mr Speaker—the more important it is to show good manners to those who are working on one’s behalf. There is a helpline that people can call, and for any members of staff listening to this—I hope hon. Members will pass this on to their staff—it is 0800 028 2439. I hope that the security staff who were abused will ring the helpline so that the House of Lords authorities can look into the matter.

While I am paying tribute to the staff, I want to add one thing on a happier note. Two members of our security staff—this shows us how lucky we are—Ron Dowson and Habibi Syaaf rescued a man who had fallen into the Thames earlier this week. That is a reminder of how well we are served and, therefore, of our even greater duty of good manners.

Parliament as a Workplace

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) on this excellent debate. It is sad that it is not more broadly attended because it is an important topic. As a Member of Parliament who has to spend anywhere between 10 and 15 hours a week travelling to and from my constituency, I was grateful to hear of the great experiences that others have who travel shorter distances.

Members have made important contributions. The late and much-missed Jo Cox said that we in Westminster

“are behind the curve compared with working practice in much of industry, and the charitable and public sectors, and that is a problem… if we act differently and change the culture and working practices here, we can change how others operate. We should do that, because we are here to change and improve the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 46WH.]

I could not agree more. If we are to make laws and policies that are forward thinking and progressive, we must get our own house in order.

When I came to this place, I could not help thinking it was a cross between Downton Abbey and Hogwarts. I know people have great affection for the Houses of Parliament, but there is no doubt it is stuck in the past. It is steeped in great history, but it is not forward looking enough. It has a rich history of failing to be a workplace that is anywhere near as functional or inclusive as it should be. The hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) spoke of his shock and surprise when he arrived here to see how many pubs there were. I shared that experience.

Of the many places I have ever worked—the corporate industry, the energy sector, other MPs’ offices, foreign Governments—the only place I have seen something similar is the media. I started at Good Morning Television the year after the last pub in the building had been closed, and it was closed for a very good reason. People often visit us here in our workplace—for example, we bring constituents into this place—and it is still a mystery to me that there are so many pubs and places to buy alcohol and that alcohol is served during the day at receptions.

None the less, progress has been made. When we introduced proxy voting, I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. It has been interesting to hear from male colleagues whose partners have recently had babies or are about to have them and who have missed out on proxy voting but who will now benefit from it. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has just introduced a proposal for extended parental leave for those who have premature babies. That is a sensible proposal that I hope the Minister will consider.

Dame Laura Cox’s report last October concluded that a

“culture of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence”

was enabling abuses of power and the mistreatment of colleagues to go unchecked. It should not have taken one of our colleagues having to come here in a wheelchair on the day she was due to give birth to force proxy voting through. She was incredibly brave in what she did—she stood by her principles—and it is because of her that we have finally taken that step forward.

We have heard many stories about an endemic culture that normalises bullying and harassment, which continue to permeate our politics. That is the sad reality of decades and centuries of ancient tradition in this place. We have plans to refurbish this place. It is predicted to cost between £4 billion and £6 billion of taxpayers’ money just to bring this place and the other place up to standard. The Scottish Parliament, which will shortly celebrate its 20th anniversary, cost a little under half a billion pounds. We could build between eight and 10 Scottish Parliaments for the cost of the refurbishment. Some argue that this place would be better turned into a museum and that we could build a new Parliament in another part of the UK.

[Mrs Miller]

I did not want to stop the hon. Lady’s flow, but she referred earlier to the Cox report and the grievance procedures. I hope that she will have noted that we have secured a short debate on the Floor of the House next Tuesday to press for progress in those areas. I hope that she will be able to support that debate.

[Hannah Bardell]

The right hon. Lady has read my mind, because I was coming to that. I am glad to see that among the threadbare business for next week there will be an update on that important piece of work. It is very important that we move that forward. I commend her on the important work that she and the Women and Equalities Committee, which she chairs, have done on this. She said that the Brexit process had challenged people’s trust in politics and in this place. I agree with that and would go further: it has exposed the crumbling relic of a democratic institution that this place is. We face the prospect of having a candidate for Prime Minister who wants to prorogue Parliament and have a no-deal Brexit, which will have a devastating impact. How will we get public trust if we cannot even have proper business and legislation in this place?

The right hon. Lady talked about the built environment and the paintings around this place. I have had the good fortune to sit on the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, and it has been a privilege to do so and particularly to see the work that has been done on the 209 Women project. I commend all those involved in that project, but during that period, I learned that 25 times more money had been spent over the past 20 years on buying pictures of men for this place than had been spent on buying pictures of women. Let us not forget that the photographs of the female parliamentarians who took part in the 209 Women project were taken by female photographers, who were not paid, which is a really important point. When we are trying to support women and their work, we must remember that they should be properly recognised. Without radical changes to this place to make it more inclusive, we will not properly reflect society.

We have made significant strides. We are the gayest Parliament in the world, or one of the gayest, and I am proud to be a woman who is gay in this place. When I stood for election and for selection, I stood against four men. I looked at the line-up and thought, “Why do I want to do this? Why do I want to go up against four men to go to a place that is very male dominated?” I did it because I wanted to be part of the change that I know many young women cannot see.

In Scotland, we have also made significant strides. We have a gender-balanced Cabinet. When Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister, she was one of only a handful of leaders in the world to do that. It is really important that we have politicians who are hard-working, relatable and can bring their personal experiences to this place. We saw that in the most recent election. There are Members across this House with a vast array of life experiences, but we have to make sure that we have that not just in Parliament and its elected representatives, but in our media. I often look up at the Press Gallery, at the press who are looking down at us, and I do not see many female faces or people of colour. It is really important that we have people reporting on our politics who are as diverse as possible.

We have had contributions from Members who have spoken about access to this place. If this building was being built from scratch today, there is absolutely no way in which it would meet health and safety standards. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge talked about the voting system. We have proxy voting, but electronic voting would save us a huge amount of time. On the last count that I did, which was in March, I calculated that we had spent 205 hours—five and a half working weeks—just voting. Given that Parliament sits for only 35 or 36 weeks a year, a huge amount of time is being wasted just on voting. Nobody is arguing that we should not be here debating and voting. That is extremely important, but, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said, perhaps we could have an allotted time for urgent questions and have predictability in our business, particularly when we have people travelling from our constituencies, businesses and other organisations to come to see us in Parliament. Having to cancel meetings at the last minute and not being able to get back for children’s events and caring responsibilities is a ridiculous situation. There is no other such employment anywhere. We do our constituents an injustice, and in my view we cannot properly represent them and their issues when there is such a lack of predictability, progress and activity from a legislative perspective. Brexit has dominated so much of the legislative timetable that it has created and exposed the inadequacies of the system.

I understand that people like the banter and to have a wee chat in the voting Lobbies, but for goodness’ sake, we live in a modern world. We should be able to have those meetings and engage with one another. It just exposes the inaccessibility of the Government and the inability to get answers from them that people feel the need to use the time in the voting Lobbies just to corner other people, because they cannot get the proper responses, meetings and time that they feel they need.

[Tom Brake]

I want to use this opportunity to draw to the attention of the hon. Lady and other Members present to the fantastic opportunity that we have with the Northern Estate programme, as part of which we shall build a, I think badly named, temporary Chamber—a Chamber that could in fact be permanent. If we cannot get reform here—which is quite difficult to do, because there is a certain amount of inertia—we should make sure that for that temporary Chamber, which we will be sitting in from about 2025 onwards, those issues are at the very least tested, so that if they are successful, they can be reintroduced here when we come back to a new Palace of Westminster in 2031 or thereabouts.

[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that important point. However, if I am still here in 2031 and Scotland is not an independent country, I will eat my hat, quite literally. The thought that I would still be having to come to this place horrifies me.

We do not have a seat in the Chamber for every Member. So many times I have heard people argue, “We need to queue up and vote in the Lobbies because people need to be here for the debate,” yet we can only fit half the Members of this place into this Chamber to listen to a debate. For goodness’ sake—it is common sense. Let us have a Chamber that is big enough. I know of so few Parliaments—I have been in Parliaments all over the world, including Malawi at the beginning of last year—that do not have electronic voting. The European Parliament and the Council of Europe have it, as do the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is not difficult, so for goodness’ sake, let us just get on and do it.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), in a recent speech, made a point about half terms and summer breaks. She included reference to experiences in Scotland. In parts of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the recesses do not match up to the holidays. I have colleagues who sometimes have an overlap of less than 10 days, so they cannot even get a break with their families. I am in no doubt that we have a huge amount of privilege being in this place, and this is not about having a rant and a moan; it is about saying to our constituents, “Look, we could do a much better job for you, and a much better job by you, and more people—women—from across the social and the economic spectrum could be encouraged into this place if it had a proper, modern working ethic.”

I shall finish by reflecting on some of the experiences of my staff, many of whom have been with me since I was first elected. About the end of 2015, we started an all-party group on deaths abroad and consular services, because we had two constituents—women—who had been killed abroad in suspicious circumstances. Since then, we have taken evidence from about 60 families across the UK who have lost loved ones abroad. That has been a harrowing and deeply distressing experience for me and my staff—nothing like the experience that those families have had, but none the less the vicarious trauma that my staff and I have experienced has been significant.

We have worked with the parliamentary authorities to get the right emotional support, and it has become very clear to me that there is not appropriate emotional support for staff members. All our staff members do an incredible job, and they often have to deal with distressing and difficult constituency work. We must do much more, through the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and the other authorities, to ensure that our staff get the proper support when they come to work for an MP, because we are all individual employers and we have a very important responsibility to our staff to ensure that they are properly protected. They will be able to serve our constituents properly only if they get the right support, and this place will be a modern Parliament that can properly reflect all parts of the UK and all people who live in it only if we can make it a modern and sensible working place.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mel Stride)]

I thank all those who have contributed to a valuable and wide-ranging debate, and especially the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) for sharing with us her many ideas, which were clearly built on her experience, in another life before Parliament, of workplace and maternity rights. I also recognise that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer), who is no longer in his place for the very good reasons he gave, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) put their names to the motion. In mentioning my right hon. Friend, perhaps I may take this opportunity to thank her for the work that she does as the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, and say that I particularly look forward to the prospect of working closely with her in the weeks and months ahead.

As I said, we have had a wide-ranging debate. That is part of the nature of the solutions we all look to when we seek to have a Parliament that is fit for the 21st century and to ensure that the heritage, the wisdom of the ages and the things that make this Parliament work extremely well—there are many; we tend not to focus on them and to take them for granted—are preserved while we move forward positively. That came out in the debate.

As I listened to the various contributions, I noted the wide variety of areas on which hon. Members rightly alighted. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge mentioned the onsite nursery, electronic voting, the recess dates, school holidays and parliamentary Prayers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke mentioned commuting to Parliament, retention of MPs and staff, proxy voting, mental health, the parliamentary timetable—especially UQs—disability access, restoration and renewal, women in Parliament and ethnic minority portraits.

The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead mentioned accessibility and disabled access and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) mentioned job sharing in an intervention. The hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) referred to shared parental leave, and I was gratified to learn that his eldest daughter shares the name Ophelia with one of my daughters: it is a lovely name. I will certainly take away from this debate the wonderful image of several Labour Members and the shadow Chancellor failing to fill in a passport form at the Passport Office: I am sure there were very good reasons for that happening on that occasion.

This is an important debate. If our Parliament is not properly accessible, does not project an image that gains the trust and respect of the public or is not truly representative of the country at large, it is a pretty poor state of affairs. I accept that more can be done at every turn. On the point about representation, “The Good Parliament” report has been mentioned. It is an excellent piece of work. It gives the figures: at present, just 32% of Members of Parliament are female, and the figure for the House of Lords is just 27%. On just that one metric, that is clearly not right, and much of the debate has understandably been framed in the context of how we address that particular issue, along with several others.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, who did some excellent work in several areas that have been raised this afternoon, not least of which is proxy voting. We should not forget that the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) was the first to exercise a proxy vote on 29 January. I also thank the Procedure Committee for the valuable work that it did in that respect. My predecessor also drove through work on restoration and renewal, which will bring with it many opportunities to address some of the accessibility and, perhaps, technology issues that have been raised.

One of the aspects that did not feature in everybody’s contribution, but is very important and was raised by the shadow Leader of the House, is the independent complaints and grievance scheme, on which much additional work now needs to be done. I look forward to working closely with her on that. My predecessor did a great deal to move that element forward.

As we fall over ourselves to say that things are not right or are archaic, and all the rest of it, we should not overlook the progress that has been made or, indeed, assume that we are stuck in a previous century, because many good things are occurring. There have been changes to the sitting hours, which many Members mentioned. Most recently—this was during my time here—we made a number of helpful changes in 2012. We now have childcare facilities for those aged three months and above, up to five years, the family room off the Lower Waiting Hall, the baby-changing facilities and various other things that are advances in their own right.

A huge amount remains to be done, of course, which I would categorise in at least four areas. The first is a change in the culture of the House of Commons and the Palace of Westminster, particularly through the independent complaints and grievance scheme, which has a role in ensuring that we have a system that has zero tolerance for harassment and bullying in any form. I join the shadow Leader of the House in thanking Julie Harding, the independent director of cultural transformation, for her work, particularly in that regard.

The Alison Stanley report, the six-month review of the scheme, has been mentioned. The scheme has now been going for about a year, and the report has made some interesting recommendations. I look forward to working with the shadow Leader of the House on reviewing those recommendations, particularly on the efficiency of the system, training requirements and resourcing.

There are outstanding matters across the three strands of the Cox report, most notably on the second and third strands. As the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) may have mentioned, we have a debate on the report next Tuesday and I urge all those present to join us. I will have another outing and we will be able to discuss these matters in even more detail—something to look forward to.

The second area is about supporting parents, and many Members specifically mentioned the piloting of proxy voting. We need to see where we go with that. Clearly we could take other avenues. We could broaden the scope of proxy voting to different situations, and I look forward to looking at that closely.

A number of Members commented on the working hours of the House, which the Procedure Committee has previously looked at in detail. There was a survey on these matters in 2017. The problem, as with so many of these issues, is finding consensus. It is for the House to make these changes, and it is for the House to come together and form consensus on any proposal that may be made.

Several points have made about the organisation of business, and I will briefly touch on one or two of those points. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke raised an interesting idea about the timing of urgent questions, although it contains the nub of the problem with many such ideas. Although it may have some beneficial effects in one respect, it has more negative effects in another. It is about balancing the two. Specifically, if we had urgent questions very early in the parliamentary day, we would still need all the processes that happen in the background leading up to Mr Speaker’s decision on whether to grant an urgent question. That would be shifted several hours earlier and would therefore cause problems earlier in the day, although it would perhaps solve some of the problems for others later in the day. We need to debate and consider such things closely, and I would be happy to sit down with my right hon. Friend to have a closer look at her suggestions, if she would like to do that.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge talked about the possibility of deferring Divisions late at night, which is an interesting suggestion, and at least one hon. Member talked about the Whips and the valuable role they play in pairing, slipping and so on. They are often the unsung heroes of the parliamentary processes. I say that as a former Whip and therefore somebody who fully grasps, should I say—to be generous—the impact that they can have upon one’s future.

Accessibility is very important. We have a real opportunity with the restoration and renewal project to get some of these things right, and I am very excited about that. The matter was raised by the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead, who made some strong points. As the shadow Leader of the House pointed out, it is not just about lifts, ramps and those kinds of things. Often, it is about the acoustics, lighting, security and technology—all these things that make buildings more accessible.

My final point is about technology in this place. There are great opportunities to use technology better here. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge pointed out that we could speed up voting by holding multiple votes at the same time on iPads, provided the votes were not contingent on each other. We have real opportunities to look at using technology to do things differently, although we have to be careful in considering change in those areas.

To respond to the hon. Member for Livingston, I am not particularly drawn to the idea of electronic voting. There are clearly some benefits, but I am very drawn to the idea of Members getting together at a moment in time when conversations with Ministers and others can occur. That is important, and the second point to underscore is that spending the time to get here and do that means that we have to think more about what we are voting for than we would by, alternatively, clicking something or touching a screen.

To be slightly self-indulgent, I would like to float my own idea, which I first floated in 2011. It went absolutely nowhere, because it was obviously far too frightening and radical, but maybe we have moved on. The idea was to have a list of those about to speak up on the annunciator, so that if we knew that the Leader of the House was going to speak in two or three speakers’ time, we could scamper to the Chamber to listen to his pearls of wisdom.

There could be an even greater benefit—I know that I am straying into dangerous, radical territory, Madam Speaker, but let me finish my point at least—because if that information were known several speakers in advance, it could be communicated to the wider world through technology. I could be sitting on a bus and an app could suddenly ping to tell me that the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) would be on her feet in 10 minutes. I would obviously not dismiss that fact for a second, but would press “Yes, please, I’m absolutely gagging to hear from the hon. Lady”, whereupon she would appear on my screen. I could listen to her or perhaps to my local MP on that bus trip and become more engaged with Parliament and my Member of Parliament. Part of the problem is that we do not know when Members will be called to speak, so that might be one idea.

[Hannah Bardell]

I have to say that I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman on that point. I am a member of the Council of Europe, and that is exactly how it operates. We know the order of speakers well in advance and exactly how much time we will get to speak—there is none of this increasing or reducing the time limit; it is much more organised. So he will have my support if he brings forward that proposal.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady very much, although I am not sure that I have the support of the Chair—I am desperately trying to hold everybody together, which I might just about be able to manage. If the hon. Lady would like to discuss that further with me, I will be happy to do so, although of course I raise these points fully aware that they are far more complicated than the manner in which I have presented them might suggest.

Perhaps I should conclude and leave a minute or two for the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge to respond to the debate, if she would like to. Again, I thank everybody for their contributions. I have listened extremely carefully to everything that everybody has said and my door is always open. The mission to reform Parliament is deep and complicated, and it often faces considerable resistance from all sorts of different directions, but the House has my commitment that I am happy to work with Members from all parties to see how we can improve matters.

Business of the House

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises a really concerning issue. It is appalling that in the 21st century people still face discrimination and persecution because of who they are or who they love. The Government urge Brunei to uphold its international human rights obligations and to respect individual freedoms. She will know that there was a discussion about that yesterday in this place—I think that she was there. I can assure her that the Government will continue to express our deep concern at ministerial and diplomatic levels.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Many women across the UK have been led to believe that they were at fault and responsible for the birth defects of their own children, when in fact they had taken the hormone pregnancy drug primodos. My constituent Wilma Ord and her daughter Kirsteen have been waiting for answers and justice for Kirsteen’s whole life. We are due to have a debate in Westminster Hall on Wednesday 23 April. I am grateful for the answer the Leader of the House gave to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), but could she clarify for my constituents and me at what time the debate will be held, and will she give an absolute assurance that it will not be shifted or changed as a result of whatever shambles next appears in this place?

Points of Order

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman observes correctly.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise for not giving you notice of my being unable to be at business questions to raise this point, but I have spoken to several members of House staff who have quite reasonable and significant concerns about having holidays cancelled. As Members, we appreciate that we have to come here, despite the somewhat arcane procedures of this place, and lose out on holidays over recess—though it would be helpful if you could reiterate, for the benefit not just of the House but of journalists and the public watching, that recesses are not holidays and that, although Members and staff occasionally take holidays, for most of us they are a time to go back to our constituents, with whom we are getting very limited time at present.

Leaving that to one side, what can Members do to make sure that the voice of the staff of this House and the other place is heard, and that if their plans are being cancelled at significant cost to them they will be properly recompensed? From the conversations I have had, it seems that that is not the case. Members understand that that is something they have to suck up, so to speak, but I do not believe that House staff should be messed about and not recompensed for holidays and time with their families that they are losing out on because of the current state of affairs.

[Mr Speaker]

As far as staff are concerned, one would expect them to be fully recompensed. That is the working principle here. I cannot comment about others. I mean no disrespect to them, but journalists, who are not employees of the House or Members, are a different matter, and the responsibility there is someone else’s. As far as those here are concerned, however, the working assumption must be that people are properly recompensed. I understand the anxiety that many people will feel, however, and I hope there will be clarity sooner rather than later.

Insofar as the hon. Lady asks where people should go with their concerns, or what recourse they have to ensure that those concerns are expressed, I would say that the trade unions and staff associations are obvious bodies to express concerns to. Those institutions regularly interact with the House of Commons Commission and the Clerk of the House, who is head of the House Service, not to mention the Director General of the House. There are, then, avenues, and they are quite well known, and the trade unions in this place are perfectly well aware of how to get their messages across—and it is absolutely right that they are got across.

Business of the House

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the importance of GPs to all our constituents. We all rely heavily on them, and their workload has grown significantly in the recent past. She will be aware that the Government have provided an extra £33.9 billion in cash terms for the NHS by 2023-24. That will make a significant difference, and the profound changes proposed in the NHS long-term plan will mean that more people than ever before will be able to access their GP in a timely fashion.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

May we have a debate in Government time on electronic voting? Since my colleagues and I were elected in 2015, this House has spent 205 hours—eight and a half full days, or five and a half working weeks—just on voting, in smelly, sweaty, stuffy voting Lobbies. This is wasting time and thwarting democracy.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very sorry if the hon. Lady’s Lobby is smelly and sweaty. I can assure her that the Government’s Lobby is totally charming and full of courtesy and respect. Perhaps she should join us; she might enjoy the experience. I do take her point seriously; it has been raised on a number of occasions by her hon. Friends. As I have said before, were the Procedure Committee to choose to conduct an inquiry into electronic voting and to take views on it from across the House, I would of course consider its recommendations very carefully.

Business of the House

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I certainly join the hon. Lady in welcoming that new strategy from the Welsh Government. It is incredibly important that we do everything we can to protect the mental health of young people. It is pleasing to see that individual universities right across the United Kingdom are doing more to try to support the mental health of their students. It is right that they should do that. Equally, I am sure that she will welcome the fact that the Government are putting a record £12 billion of investment into mental health and that we are developing a 24/7 health crisis care service that will be accessible to adults, children and young people. It will be rolled out through the NHS 111 service and give people access to vital crisis care whenever they need it.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

May we have a debate in Government time on the importance of, and investment in, cervical cancer charities? Local charities such as the Michelle Henderson Cervical Cancer Trust in my constituency and Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust play a huge role in reducing the rates of cervical cancer, but the uptake of cervical cancer tests is at a 20-year low. Many years ago, when I was in my teens, I was unfortunate enough to contract the human papilloma virus. I went on to give my cells to develop the new vaccine, and I am very proud of that. That vaccine is saving lives, but young women are still contracting cervical cancer and dying because they are not going to get their cervical smears. May we have a debate in Government time to discuss this important issue?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that having a cervical smear is a critical thing that every woman can do to protect herself. I am sure all hon. Members would encourage every woman to please go and get that smear and not to let time go past, because there are often no symptoms until it is too late. I would also like to commend the hon. Lady for her own personal contribution to ensuring that others do not have to go through what she went through. I encourage her to seek a Westminster Hall debate so that all hon. Members can contribute their thoughts on this important issue.

Proxy Voting

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I very much look forward to her continuing work on and interest in this issue. If anybody can drive through this agenda, it is she and her Committee.

We very much welcome the motions and hope that this will be the very last word on the tortuous process of delivering proxy voting in this House. It is almost unbelievable that it has taken so long. It is almost a year since the first debate, when the House expressed a will and a view that proxy voting should be a feature of our voting arrangements. I have no reason to doubt the Leader of the House’s commitment to this; in fact, I know how solid her commitment is. She has been very sincere and championed this through the House in the course of the past year. I just hope that she has managed to get her Whips Office fully on board with all this now. I really hope that there will be no other kickback from any Whips Office in this House and that we are able to properly deliver this.

As we have heard, the Procedure Committee was charged with bringing forward a solution and designing a way in which that could happen, and that has been duly discharged. I, the Leader of the House, you, Mr Speaker, and the shadow Leader of the House—she has promised to be my proxy if I ever require one, but I gently say to her that I do not think that is going to be necessary—all gave evidence to the Committee. The motions practically replicate everything that was suggested and recommended by the Committee, and this is the way forward.

It has to be said, however, that it has taken a couple of crises for us to get to this position. The first involved the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and the breaking of the pairing system back in July last year, and then there were the terrible and appalling events around the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who had that dreadful experience with voting a couple of weeks ago. Let us not kid ourselves that there has been only natural and good-natured progression, because it has taken a couple of such incidents before this has happened.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we have to get past the point where we are making policy as a result of being shamed? We had to be shamed into doing this. There were so many debates, and the Leader of the House herself said that she might look at it when we moved out of this place while it was being refurbished. A lot has changed since then, and it is great to see progress, but we cannot let things continue like this.

[Pete Wishart]

I totally agree. We should make proper plans and make sure that we have the right arrangements in place. I do recall those comments by the Leader of the House, but I will be kind to her—I think that she has played a part in ensuring that this is delivered and made a reality, along with many Members.

We have to conclude that the pairing system has totally and utterly failed this House. The 19th-century “nod and a wink” approach that we had to deal with such arrangements really now has to come to an end. We never, ever trusted the pairing system. We have never participated in any pairing arrangements during my time in the House—almost 18 years—and they must be totally and utterly abandoned.

It is a welcome fact that the motions have been debatable—that was the right way to go. When these proceedings were first proposed last week, there were concerns that somebody might attempt to vote the motions down or talk them out. I welcome the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I used to gently chide him when he was a new Member, calling him “Dinosaur Jr”. He is now a fully fledged member of the dinosaur community, but his interest just goes to show that even dinosaurs may change their horns. I accept, in the sincerest way, that he has now come forward as a fully fledged, proper member of the community of change in this House. We will support his amendment tonight.

It is great that Professor Sarah Childs is with us tonight, because it was her report that first set out some of the agenda items we needed to look at. We have to make this place a good Parliament. We have to address some of the byzantine ways in which we do our business in this House. I go on and on about the voting Lobbies. They are now thoroughly dangerous and we have to do something about them properly, so let us start to look at that. This is a good start. I can assure the House that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has already signed the certificate. We will now get this process in place and I welcome it very much.

Business of the House

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and the Leader of the House for what she has said. Of course, as we discovered last summer, it is possible for the credibility of the pairing system to be damaged, perhaps irreparably, when it is abused or dishonoured. Moreover, as hon. and right hon. Members are aware, the House has twice debated the matter of proxy voting in circumstances of baby leave, and on both occasions the will of the House in support of such a system was made clear. Therefore, it is imperative, following those two debates in February and September of last year, that effect is given to the will of the House. It would of course be intolerable—literally intolerable—if, for example, a Whips Office, because of its own opposition to such a change, were to frustrate the will of the House. That simply cannot happen, and I very much doubt that Members will be tolerant of it for any length of time. The House has spoken and change must happen. It is a lamentable failure of leadership thus far that it has not done so.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I do not mean to labour the point, Mr Speaker, but I think it utterly incredible that in our employment as Members of Parliament we are treated differently from anybody else across the UK or beyond. There is no other job anywhere where someone would be asked to, and put in the position where they have to, choose to come to work the day before they give birth or to delay the birth of their child. I am sorry, but I am fed up with hearing excuses from the Leader of the House and ridiculous arguments about not putting in place proxy voting, baby leave, and, frankly, electronic voting. We only need to look to Wales and Scotland, where we have Parliaments that have seats for every Member and electronic voting. For goodness’ sake, this is the 21st century—what are this Government doing? It is about time they sorted this out so that we can enjoy a proper status and be able to consider having children. I do not have any children but I may consider having some at some point, and I do not know how that would be manageable in the current circumstance.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments, and I am listening very carefully. She will appreciate that what happens in this place is a matter for Members. A number of Members have raised with me the need for those with long-term illnesses, family emergencies and so on to be accommodated, but I have heard from other Members that that would not command the support of the House. I am seeking to provide a solution that can command the support of the House.

The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) was able to be nodded through. If it was a matter of having her vote recorded—[Interruption.] Members are shaking their heads. The usual channels agreed that she could come to this place at any moment on that day and be nodded through, to have her vote recorded. On this occasion, until we have finalised the way forward, that is my strong recommendation. I hope that the hon. Lady will take medical advice and not come into the House unnecessarily.

Business of the House

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Just a few days before Christmas, the manufacturing firm Kaiam in my constituency closed its doors, telling staff that there would be no pay before Christmas and that they might not have a job in the new year. The West Lothian and Livingston community rallied around and the women of West Lothian set up a hub to ensure that toys, food, money and vouchers were available, so that no one would go without at Christmas. May we have a debate on how quickly the Redundancy Payments Service moneys can be disbursed, and on what can be done to ensure that these companies maintain their pension liabilities, that cowboy chief executive officers, such as the one who runs Kaiam, who flew out of the country as staff were being told their fate, are brought to justice, and that we do everything we can to support the workers during this difficult time?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I think that we are all incredibly sympathetic to the hon. Lady’s constituents who were given such terrible news in the run-up to Christmas, and we join her in congratulating and thanking all those who made sure that they could still celebrate Christmas. She raises some important points about how businesses behave if they are failing. She will be aware that the Matthew Taylor review has raised some serious issues relating to pensions management and so on, which the Government are looking at closely. I encourage her to apply for an Adjournment debate so that the matter can be raised directly with Ministers.

Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

Of course I do. The whole point is that this House is entitled to the full legal advice. The Government are hiding behind this cloak of saying, “Oh, the national interest; oh, negotiations; oh, security.” That has nothing to do with it.

What I am illustrating with these legal arguments is that there are alternative views that need to be fully discussed so that we can take the right decision on the withdrawal agreement in full knowledge of the facts. We have had a doctored version that is politically spun in the interests of the Government getting their objectives through. They are protecting themselves by saying, “Oh, there might be issues of national security, MI5, the public interest, etc.” I have great support, I must say, for the Father of the House’s suggestion that if there were such problems with national security and so on, those parts could be redacted and we could see the full legal advice.

This motion focuses clearly on the legal advice provided by the Attorney General on the EU withdrawal agreement. Implicit in that, in my interpretation, is that we obviously do not need lots of details about MI5, national security, the negotiating position and so on. What we want to know is the legal position in respect of article 50 and of the illegalities during the advisory referendum that made it flawed, thereby undermining the power that the Prime Minister has under the EU (Withdrawal) Act based on the advisory referendum that we now find is flawed. None of this was brought before the House. Why? Either because the Attorney General and his colleagues are incompetent or because they are withholding that information.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

As the hon. Gentleman says, the Government are hiding behind the national and public interest and claiming to be the final arbiter of public interest. Does he agree that they are not the final arbiter of public interest, despite what some on the Government Benches may think, and that it is not in the public interest for the UK Government to be governing in secret, with Members of this House not having all the information to make a proper, educated decision?

[Geraint Davies]

Yes, that is precisely right. What the House wants is the complete legal arguments on either side of the debate on the EU withdrawal agreement. These are difficult issues; we all accept that, and we are all grown up. They might say, “Well, there are all these things about national interest, negotiation and security,” but people are not interested in that. We want the full facts. I have made some simple legal points that show the full debate has not occurred.