Houses of Parliament (Family-friendliness)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the family-friendliness of Parliament.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton, and I thank all the hon. Members who have come to Westminster Hall today; it is a pleasure to see people from all parties here. In particular, I thank the Deputy Leader of the House and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), the shadow Deputy Leader of the House, for attending. Although only one of those women is my hon. Friend, I have experienced sorority from both, and have felt them both urging me and other women forward in this place, and I wish to state very clearly that this issue is not a party political one.

We are here to discuss the family-friendliness of the Houses of Parliament. I wrote and amended this speech last night. Because of the Scotland Bill debate, I once again failed to ring to wish my children goodnight before bed or to check in with my husband, who was ill yesterday. As I typed this speech at 11.29 pm and the chimes of Big Ben began, the importance of this debate seemed incredibly acute.

I am not the first person to raise this issue; there have been champions, male and female, from all parties. As I seem to do every single day, I must give credit to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). I credit her work over the years in changing Government policy, party policy and this place for the reason that I am standing here today. However, Mr Speaker has also been a champion, and I have just been hearing of other champions, including male champions from the Government Benches. In the spirit of full cross-party support, I must mention that it was a Liberal Democrat MP, the former hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire, who was the first MP to carry her baby through the voting Lobby. Every week now, I see Members with their children walking through the Lobbies, and guess what? Nobody dies. That change is absolutely a credit to her.

People have been campaigning on this issue for a very long time—I think that today we will hear about some people who campaigned on it before I was even born—and progress has definitely been made. We have come a long way from the bad old days of the 1970s. For me, that is best symbolised by the example of what was Bellamy’s Bar. Once, it was no doubt smoke-filled and gin-fuelled; I say that, although I have no experience of it myself. It sounds like quite good fun. Now, however, it has been turned into a nursery, so hurrah for progress. However, we still have an incredibly long way to go before this place is a proper family-friendly environment.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

rose—

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

[Jess Phillips]

In the spirit of gender solidarity, I will give way to the right hon. Lady.

[Mrs Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady, who is a fellow member of the Women and Equalities Committee, for giving way and I commend her for securing this debate. I applaud her focus on a family-friendly Parliament, but should she not also consider a people-friendly Parliament? I want to see a Parliament that is representative of the country that we live in, so does she share my concern that the number of MPs who are from different ethnic, religious and social backgrounds, and the number of disabled people in Parliament, is not as high as it should be?

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. I could not agree more. The two issues are potentially distinct but have an enormous crossover, and much of what I will go on to say today is about how there are so many barriers to so many different people coming into this place that Parliament is not a particularly healthy working environment for anybody: people with families and people without families; older Members and younger Members. An awful lot goes on in that place that acts as a huge barrier to people working here.

[Tom Brake]

First, the hon. Lady is right to say that things have moved on slightly. When my daughter was born 18 years ago, during Divisions I had to leave her in the Lib Dem Whips Office with members of staff in their early 20s who did not have the foggiest idea of what they were supposed to do with a six-month-old. Things have improved slightly since then.

I apologise for not being able to stay for the duration of this debate, but I would like to take this opportunity to say how appalled I was by the abuse that the hon. Lady received recently. However, the point of my intervention is to say that I sit on the House of Commons Commission and clearly there is work under way, with which she will be familiar, which Sarah Childs is doing in relation to a gender-sensitive Parliament. I will make sure that, on Monday, when the Commission meets, this debate is taken into account, to see if there are issues that the hon. Lady and other hon. Members have raised that the Commission should examine.

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support in regard to my own experiences during the last few weeks of what it is like to be a woman in this place. I also thank him and the other members of the Commission for its continued work, and for offering to take back to it anything that is discussed here today. I very much hope that this debate and any debates on this subject become part of the bigger picture of the Commission’s work.

I will now say why this issue is so important, before going on to talk about some of the specific problems and some of the possible ways to address them. I am not trying to present any one possible solution as a silver bullet that will make us a family-friendly place. I am contributing to a debate that has been going on for decades and that I am sure will continue in the future.

Next spring is particularly important. As has been highlighted, Professor Sarah Childs will be publishing her final report on delivering a gender-sensitive Parliament, and there will be a parliamentary debate on the implementation of the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation, which reported in 2010. That seems to me to be an excellent opportunity to debate this issue, and to build cross-party consensus to achieve real change. I stress again that we will get such changes only when we work hard together and not combatively, so that everyone in this place feels that they have been involved in this process.

First, why is having a family-friendly Parliament so important? I am not sure if I have made it particularly clear yet—I can be a bit shy about it—but I am a feminist and this is a feminist issue. However, that should not make anyone think that it is an issue that affects only women. It directly affects all people in Parliament who have families, and it indirectly affects every single person up and down the country. Parliament not being family-friendly affects MPs and parliamentary staff immediately and directly, but it also has a wider effect and impact in terms of representation.

On Saturday night, I was having a chat with my husband, who is and has always been the primary carer of our children, and a friend of ours, who is a single mum. We mulled over some of the ideas about how to make this place a more family-friendly parliament. Very quickly, they turned to the idea that, “Well, you knew what the job was going to be like. You don’t expect family-friendly oil rigs. It is just the nature of the job.” That is a fair point and one that I am sure will be expressed to me in the below-the-line comment sections of any newspaper that chooses to report this debate.

However, Parliament is fundamentally different. Yes, there are many jobs that are still not that family-friendly. It is the nature of jobs with a predominantly male workforce—something, of course, that we should challenge. However, it is not the job of oil rigs to reflect society; it is not the job of oil rigs to push for laws and regulations to improve families’ lives; and the world does not look at the people who work on oil rigs for an example of what our culture should be. But it is the job of Parliament to do those things.

My friend concluded our discussion on Saturday by saying that, as a single mother and sole provider for a young child, for her to be a Member of Parliament is virtually impossible. That statement alone should highlight the fact that we still have such a long way to go before this place truly represents the world outside.

The immediate impact is easy to see. Think of the large number of MPs who are mothers who stood down at the last election. Often, debate on this issue has mainly focused on female MPs, which is quite understandable, as the current situation is a huge contributor to the under-representation of women in Parliament. However, all too often we do not recognise that it does not affect just women MPs. It affects all MPs with care-giving responsibilities, and not just MPs who are parents. It affects those of us who have sick relatives, including husbands who have been unwell or ageing parents who we have to look after. All those factors should be considered in the round.

Male and female parliamentarians with young children or dependent family members undoubtedly need extra help, but they are only part of the story. The issue does not affect only MPs. Every MP has staff, as does Parliament itself. There are thousands of people who protect the building, work in the kitchens, sort the mail and do the research in the Library—there are even people who write down every word we say. Those people keep this place going. If it were all left to MPs to do, I am fairly certain that the place would grind to a halt in just a few days, if not hours.

Problems with the availability and affordability of childcare, parental leave, unpredictability, and unsocial hours affect everyone in this place who has family responsibilities. When a Parliament is structured in such a way as to make balancing work and family difficult, it excludes people with families, and the wider effects of not being family-friendly are hugely troubling. The best people are put off applying, and we want the best people shaping the laws and opposing and supporting the process. Ultimately, that is what is best for the country, but someone with family responsibilities would definitely think twice about working here.

I come from working in a women’s refuge where all the staff were women and most of the service users were women and children, and I often joke that when I first walked into Portcullis House it seemed to me as though it were staffed entirely by young men called Will, Tom or Ben. I am sure that the huge workforce of young men is absolutely brilliant, but we must be more reflective of society. In my old job, we used to joke that we could employ a full-time obstetrician such was the pregnancy rate among our staff, but here weeks will go by without anyone seeing a pregnant woman walking around the estate. This is about our wanting the best people, and if we want fair competition and to attract the best, we should remove the barriers that prevent those exact people from applying to be Members and to work in this place.

In many ways, normal workplaces are much more family-friendly than Parliament. We have an awful lot of catching up to do. If at some point in the future we go beyond our current work practices, that will be good. We should be leading the way and setting an example. Not being family-friendly sends the wrong message to the country. We are a highly visible workplace—I feel like waving at the cameras now. The only jobs in which there are more cameras and microphones are those on chat shows. So what we do here matters. We should be a beacon of a proper 21st-century family-friendly workplace.

While we are thinking about scrutiny—the eyes and ears of the world on us—no one could fail to notice when glancing up at the benches in the Press Gallery that women are grossly under-represented in the press lobby, and I will wager—I do not have any empirical research—that mothers are even more so. I remember introducing the previous leader of the Labour party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), to the press pack on the day when he talked about how he was going to change the Labour party’s rules and make it so that more people could be involved, so that we could reach out and, essentially, reflect society a bit better. After he spoke, the press lobby grilled him and grilled him: “Do you really think that your party, or any party, or Westminster, is particularly reflective?” After he had walked out of the room, I sat in front of the press lobby—I was not a Member of Parliament then, just a woman called in to introduce the leader of her party—and I chastised them. There was not a single woman among them—these opinion formers, the people who tell others what happens in this place—and they dared to have a go at him about not being representative. The way in which this place is run undoubtedly changes what gets reported here—how the world sees us—and we cannot go on like this.

While we continue with the status quo and push back at any challenge, we are guilty of huge hypocrisy. I have spent all morning with the members of the Women and Equalities Committee discussing, for example, the barriers employers put before women who are pregnant, and thinking about the best strategies for reducing the gender pay gap caused by women having children. But how can we lecture others when our House is not in order? If we look around at this place, with its fancy history and ancient carvings—and the rather glam curtains in this room—we can see that are in a huge glass house. Yet we are chucking stones. We should sort ourselves out so that I and the other members of the Women and Equalities Committee have a leg to stand and do not look like fools when we make recommendations. What business do we have asking big business and big employers to do something we are simply not willing to do ourselves?

Almost everyone in this place, I think, gets this. There are still a few dinosaurs in Parliament, gradually hardening into fossils, but most people in here want this. So, what is standing in the way? What are some of the aspects of Parliament’s dominant culture that hold us back, and what can we do about them?

The week before last, my children ran around these halls and in the canteen. There was a notable singing—or rather screaming—competition between my youngest son and the little boy of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). It was half-term and, for some reason, the recess in the House does not marry with that occasion. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby has raised the good—and seemingly obvious—idea of making recesses coincide with school half-terms. That idea has been proposed by men and women from all parties, and it is an idea whose time has come.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Jess Phillips]

I will give way first to the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) and then to the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray).

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady accept that apart from the October half-term, the progress we have made means that most recesses dovetail with the state holidays and half-terms, except for Scottish MPs?

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. Progress has definitely been made. The October half-term is somewhat of an anomaly. I imagine that the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts was going to make that exact point about Scotland, as I will go on to do.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

The right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) did, in fact, steal my thunder in that the recess dates do not follow the Scottish school holidays, almost at all. That is important not just from a family-friendly point of view but from a representation point of view, and there needs to be some cognisance of that from the House authorities and the Leader of the House. They need to consider whether there can be some movement—a week here and there—that would allow us to perform our duties both as parents and as representative MPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I very much welcome those interventions—they both stole my thunder. I will come on to talk about how our holidays have definitely moved more in line with the UK’s school holidays, except where Scotland is concerned.

Going back to the idea of moving the October recess, I am aware of the well-rehearsed arguments about how that would make it too soon after the conference recess, but I simply bat that back and ask, “Why do we have a three-week conference recess?” This might be a scandalous idea, but why do we not have our conferences a bit earlier or, God forbid, hold them, as the Scottish National party does, on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday so that they do not get in the way of parliamentary business? We could then consider moving our holidays around to fit everyone in this place.

In solidarity with my Scottish colleagues, I must raise the issue of the Scottish education system. As has been outlined, its holidays—all the half-terms and the summer break—run completely out of kilter with the recesses in this place. I am not certain, but I think that Christmas might be at the same time in Scotland—it is a fairly national thing. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) told me that the overlap between the recess here and the Scottish school holidays is only two weeks, which will allow him only the same fortnight each year to go on holiday with his family. He will therefore miss the same annual events each year in his constituency, which will affect his ability to represent his constituents. That seems completely unfair, given that my summer recess falls exactly in line with my children’s summer holidays. The hon. Gentleman asked me to raise with the Deputy Leader of the House the possibility of a three-week overlap, at the very least, for his family, and for other Scottish Members with children. That is a reasonable request, so it would be crass of me not to make it; this is, after all, the UK Parliament.

There will be push and pull between parents whose children live in London and the surrounding areas and those whose children live elsewhere. I would prefer longer hours in Parliament and to be at home in my constituency for more days of the week, but I know that that would not work for everyone. I was warned by people who have been in this place for much longer than me that if I ever wanted to see my children, I should move them to London, but my kids’ school, their friends and their life are in Birmingham. I could not expect my dad or my parents-in-law to up sticks to help me with the childcare as they do now. We should not want or need to encourage people to live in London, because that would make this place even more divorced from the lives of most of those whom we are here to serve.

[Neil Gray]

Perhaps the hon. Lady will reflect on the fact that Members of the Scottish Parliament do not feel the need to move their families to Edinburgh, despite having to travel great distances, because that Parliament’s Chamber and parliamentary week are structured to ensure that things are more family-friendly. Perhaps we could learn something from that.

[Jess Phillips]

I spend an awful lot of time in this place, particularly with the Women and Equalities Committee, learning that there are many areas on which we could learn from Scotland and how it runs things. There are many, many things about how the Scottish Parliament is run, such as how the Members vote—the Divisions are held in a completely different way—that seem to be much more family-friendly. I encourage any commission that is taking place and the Deputy Leader of the House to consider how we might be able to mirror some of the existing models in Scotland. Scotland, much like Sweden, is some sort of panacea of all the good things that happen in people’s lives.

[Tom Brake]

I hope that I am not stealing the hon. Lady’s thunder, as she might be about to come on to this, but has she considered the idea of job sharing for MPs as a way of ensuring better representation of women, for instance, and people with disabilities?

[Jess Phillips]

It is something that I have considered, and I was going to ask the Deputy Leader of the House what she thought of the idea. I am not entirely sure how it would work. I feel that if I were to job share, I would still end up doing exactly the same as I do now, which incidentally was what happened to me when I worked part time—I was paid for three days a week and worked for five. I therefore have some concerns about the idea. Constituents will want their MP regardless of whether it is their day. I know that Professor Childs has been looking into that, and it should be part of the debate.

When looking at a gender-sensitive Parliament, as opposed to a family-friendly Parliament, there is certainly an argument for considering the idea of job shares for those with Government positions. That would allow people with children—this largely affects women, I suppose—to take up positions in government from which they might otherwise be barred. While there might be an argument for that, I cannot see how job sharing for MPs would work, although I am willing to be proven wrong.

Work on timetabling would be a far less complicated way of making things a little easier. Why do we not find out about future business further in advance? Things have definitely improved in terms of hours, as I am sure we will hear from people who have been Members for a while. If we knew further in advance that we would have to be in Westminster or to stay late, it would make it easier to combine work and family responsibilities. It would make it easier to organise childcare in advance and would stop me constantly making promises to my sons that I often cannot keep when it comes to the day.

What does the Deputy Leader of the House think of giving us more warning in the business statement of future business, albeit recognising that issues can emerge that we cannot predict? Does she think that MPs or Ministers should be allowed to job share? What models could be considered around proper systems of parental leave, maternity leave, paternity leave and carers leave for everyone who works in Parliament, including Members, and what are the Government’s proposals?

The all-party group on women in Parliament produced a report last year that asked the House to reconsider the age at which children are allowed in the Lobbies. I think that some Members might be breaking that rule already, but does the Deputy Leader of the House agree the age should be raised from one year to cover all pre-school children—those aged from nought to four? Childcare costs are recorded and published as individual MP’s expenses, while disability allowances are aggregated, but that effectively disincentivises MPs from claiming for childcare costs, as they will have higher expenses claims than other MPs. What does she think about changing the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority system to deal with that?

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady refers to IPSA. Does she feel that there is any room for a family impact assessment of some of the IPSA rules, especially regarding how children over 18 are not treated as part of the family? Does she have any comments on that?

[Jess Phillips]

There needs to be an overarching look at what IPSA provides and how it reports in respect of families. The right hon. Lady mentions dependents over 18, and while my children are much smaller, I remember how long I was dependent on my parents. We must always be careful in Parliament about making a rule for us that does not reflect the rules we make for those outside. Thinking about IPSA, I suppose this goes back to my point about how the press lobby often reflects some of the issues around this place not being a family-friendly environment.

I often hear of those MPs who are lauded for having lower expenses. My leader is a good example of that, but the truth behind the headline is that those MPs who live outside London, who have dependents and who claim the top-up for dependent children will always be seen to be claiming more, even though in my case that is only so that I can afford a place for my children to sleep when they are with me in London. The headline of “Greedy MP” will never tell that story. As has been suggested, I sometimes wonder whether this relates to how women are treated in the media. The idea of a greedy woman or a woman being away from her children is delicious to the media, and some of the ways in which IPSA reports on childcare costs and our expenses exacerbates the situation for women MPs.

Does the Deputy Leader of the House think that women should be allowed to breastfeed in the Chamber and in Committees? I realise that that would be ridiculously controversial, but I can tell Members from years of experience that putting off breastfeeding a baby makes you feel like you are going to die or explode at any minute. I can totally sympathise with colleagues with new born babies who sometimes need to do that quickly and suddenly.

How can we send out the message that we are family-friendly? The possibility of family days has been raised, when people in Parliament would be encouraged to bring their children to this place and we could discuss issues specifically affecting families inside and outside Parliament. We must be seen to be more like the people outside for them to trust us again. Would the Deputy Leader of the House encourage that idea?

Having a crèche is a lifesaver for many parents who work in Parliament. What does the Deputy Leader of the House think about keeping it open later on nights when officials, security staff, MPs and their staff, Clerks and others have to stay later? I am always wary when I have a deadline to pick my children up from childcare. We must be careful that we do not have one rule for in here and one rule for out there, but until the rules in here look like normal working practice out there, I think that we could get away with having the crèche open later.

Those are just some of the ideas I would like the Deputy Leader of the House to consider, and I look forward to hearing other Members’ ideas. My hero of the week is the Canadian Prime Minister who, when asked last week why he had appointed a 50% female Cabinet, said simply, “Because it’s 2015.” As a mum of two young children, a Member of Parliament and a resident of a different bit of the UK, I say that it is 2015, so let us get on with this.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on securing this debate. Just six months into being a Member of Parliament, she has certainly made an impression on the House. She is right to say that this is not a partisan issue. I know she is a busy lady. She sits on the Women and Equalities Committee, and she is also a member of the Backbench Business Committee, which I believe is meeting at the same time as this debate, so she has had to sacrifice her presence there to be here. In its previous sitting, it seems that there was a minor fracas about international men’s day, which continued on “Daily Politics”. When I saw it, I wondered whether it had become a parliamentary version of “Snog Marry Avoid?” I do not expect her to say which it is.

[Jess Phillips]

Snog! [Laughter.]

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady widened the debate beyond MPs to the demands on all staff—particularly House staff. I pay tribute to all staff who help us in our roles as Members of Parliament. This issue matters to the House. Perhaps I should encourage the House of Commons authorities to make more widely known what happens in relation to flexible working, nurseries, childcare schemes in our unusual summer holidays, career breaks and so on. That information is useful, and I will ask the House authorities to extend it further and especially to new Members.

We should also recognise that we are employers in our own right, so we must be role models when we work with our staff. I tell my team off—I do not know whether they are watching—if they work later than a certain hour. I give them notice and tell them that if they keep doing it, I will have their keys removed and kick them out at a certain time. It matters that we are role models, as has been said many times already in this debate.

We are unique in a certain respect: although we should and do represent wider society, we are the masters and mistresses of our own destiny from the day we are elected until we put ourselves forward for re-election. We should consider how we perform our roles as parliamentarians. The issue is not about being superwoman or superman, but being conscious that we are representing people when we are in the Chamber, when we scrutinise legislation, when we become Ministers and when we work in our constituencies. Our party leaders expect us to be here to vote on important matters, but, as we have discussed in previous years, to some extent we can work with the usual channels to ensure we have a sensible, proactive family life. Although I do not have children, I believe that such accommodations are often willingly made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I thank all hon. Members who gave their views today. I welcome some of the Deputy Leader of the House’s assertions, in particular around the limited holiday possibilities for the Scottish representatives. The debate will not go away today; it will continue year in, year out. For every push back from the Government Benches, we need to ask ourselves, “Why?” Nobody has died. My mother always used to say to me, “Nothing bad happened if nobody lost an eye,” which did not help me when my son went to have an eye operation. There always seems to be push back on why these things cannot happen.

[Dr Coffey]

The Government would love to control every minute of parliamentary time, which would be bad for Parliament and for the country. Flexibility is often to the benefit of the Opposition.

[Jess Phillips]

I recognise that the Government are not alone in controlling what happens here, but this place is not representative at the moment. That is a simple fact. All of today’s speeches from people with caring responsibilities, be that for their children or elderly relatives or partners who may have been unwell, make that perfectly clear. When I leave this place, I want to see 50:50 representation of women and men.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).