Parliamentary Representation

Debate between Jo Swinson and Sam Gyimah

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point; I certainly pay tribute to Operation Black Vote, with which I have also worked in previous years and had people shadow me, and I know that many other Members have done the same.

There has been a lot of progress that we should celebrate. Recommendation 56 that civil partnership ceremonies should be allowed to be held in the House has been actioned. Indeed, I think the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) might have been the first to take advantage of that change. [Interruption.] Perhaps he was not the first but there have been several, which is great.

Recommendation 51, about having a nursery and crèche within the House of Commons, has been implemented. That facility is used by many Members I know, and is very welcome. Even the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which does not always have a good reputation in the House, has implemented recommendation 52, which allows Members to take part of their salary in the form of child care vouchers. Previously, that option had long been open to other members of staff in the House but not to MPs.

There has been progress through the coalition agreement on the establishment of a disability democracy fund, but I hope the Minister will say more about where exactly that has got to. I know there was a consultation last year and it would be good to know when that will come to fruition.

There is also the recommendation that section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983 should be abolished to prevent discrimination against Members who have mental health problems and have been sectioned, who currently are not able to retain their seat. I understand that there is a private Member’s Bill before the other place, but I should welcome any response from the Government about their commitment to the issue.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I welcome the points the hon. Lady is making about what Parliament as an institution should be doing to lower the barriers for entry to the House, and to teach people who want to be Members of Parliament the rules of the game, but does not the prime responsibility fall on political parties? They need to make sure that they improve representation. On the Conservative side the numbers of women, and certainly of non-white candidates, increased substantially at the 2010 election, but that was because of the efforts of the party rather than of Parliament as an institution.

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman is right. That point is vital, and I shall refer briefly to parties later.

Progress has been less good on other recommendations. Recommendation 4 is that Parliament’s education service should have its objectives changed so that it explicitly encourages a wider range of people to become candidates. Unfortunately, that recommendation has not been accepted by Parliament; a response to a parliamentary question was that it could be effected under existing objectives. That does not go far enough. When someone comes here for a tour of the House it is one of the most opportune times to ask them why they do not consider standing for Parliament and becoming an MP. That is the moment when there may be the most inspiration, and we should make that an explicit objective of the education service.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen South touched on recommendation 5; she talked about political parties being honest in publishing exactly where they are at in terms of candidate selection. That monitoring data should be in the public domain so that researchers can analyse it and use it to show where some of the issues are. That still has to be put into action by all the parties, although some have made more progress than others. I hope that today’s debate may encourage more movement, although we should congratulate the hon. Lady on managing to say something positive about the Deputy Prime Minister—I hope she did not find it too difficult—and I am delighted that he responded in full to her letter.