Parliamentary Representation

Debate between Julian Smith and Margot James

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) on securing this debate and on keeping the pressure up to make sure that the Speaker’s Conference proposals, which were made before many of us entered the House, live and carry on delivering the successful outcomes that they have started to deliver. I agree with much of what has already been said; we are here because we all care about our democracy and know how fundamental it is that all Britons, regardless of their ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, where they come from or social background, should not be barred from playing a full part in our parliamentary democracy. So this debate involves the issue of fairness, as well as the effectiveness of our legislative process. As I found in business, things are much more effective where a diverse group of individuals, with a variety of backgrounds and experiences behind them, come together to have an impact on the process. Later in my contribution I will give a few examples of small ways in which that has been achieved by our greater diversity.

A more representative Chamber will also help us to reduce the gap, which we have all seen grow in our lifetimes, between the public and their elected representatives. There are many reasons why we are all here, and the whole process starts at a young age by inspiring in people an interest in politics. Although we have improved the routes into politics, one conventional route is still for young people to come here to work as interns or special advisers or for one of the main parties’ research functions. We have to capture those young people and make sure they are more representative of society at large, as that is a natural pool of entry into politics.

We also need to consider the people who come into Parliament later in their careers, having done something else first. The public always say that they want to see more of that, and I believe everyone in this House agrees with that. There needs to be a career within Parliament that embraces the experience that these people have had in other fields and does not just focus narrowly on the more political experience, and the performance in the Chamber and at the big set-piece events, as the only perceived way of getting on in Government or shadow Government.

There are many barriers to overcome, and I have touched on a few. The hon. Lady gave a strong mention to the economic barrier, which puts a great many people off. It is why we have so few people from lower-paid or manual occupations. Indeed, there are also issues to address in respect of people at the higher end of the pay spectrum, who might feel that they cannot afford to go into Parliament. This is a big issue with numerous aspects.

The impact on family life has to be tackled better than it has been, and some of the regulations imposed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority have moved the situation backwards. That has to be tackled head on; we must not be embarrassed or nervous about dealing with the problem faced by those who represent constituencies many miles away and who want their family with them during the working week. They should not be disincentivised by an anti-family system of allowances. That system has to be changed.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the partners, wives and husbands of MPs have changed their view of the role of an MP? An MP, like everybody else in our society, needs to do a range of things both for their family and for their work, and that social change in expectations on child care and other things is a driver in some of the things to which she has referred.

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes a good point about how society and family life are changing, and how Parliament has to keep up with that. I quite agree.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend makes the very good point that, of course, this debate is about more than gender; I could not agree more. In my area, the black country, I do not feel that Conservatives have any sort of class bias in favour of people from higher socio-economic backgrounds, but I can see that in some parts of the country that bias might exist and we must certainly stamp it out.

Gender is an area where it has been easier to improve the selection processes, but we must work equally hard on improving the access to Parliament for other disadvantaged groups. We can do that by fostering a sense of inclusion—a sense that Parliament is an inclusive place—and by our parties respecting that when they select candidates.

The Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme has delivered a good start in equalising the number of women and men who come into Parliament at a young age to work. Almost 50% of the paid internships supported by the scheme have been for young women, which is a good thing. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South mentioned the access to elected office for disabled people fund. There have been 60 applicants to that fund and 29 people with disabilities, who probably face greater hurdles than anybody else in entering Parliament, now have full funding, which is great progress. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your support for all that work, which I hope will continue.

I will say a little bit about the sort of changes that we can make when we get here. The number of lesbian and gay people on our Benches now makes quite a big difference. Ministers across all Departments are very busy people. I am glad to say that all the Ministers I know are fully committed to diversity and equality, but the issue is not always at the top of their mind—they have very busy lives and many responsibilities—so it is up to Back Benchers. I applaud many of my fellow gay Back Benchers on keeping the Government to their promises. There has been the legalisation on gay marriage; the removal of historical convictions for consensual sex between men; the pardoning of Alan Turing; and support for anti-homophobic bullying campaigns in school. There are many other examples, too. It is because we have more diversity that we can make that sort of difference, and that is why we need more of it.

I want to talk about what we can learn from business. In business, we have seen some success in the “Women on Boards” programme, which has very much been led by the Government and the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). Now, 25% of non-executive directors on boards are female; that is up from 16%. I can see business outstripping politics if we are not careful. Of course, I hope that business wins the battle to get more diversity and inclusion. It realises that it will not win corporate battles by relying on the talent pool that used to win in the past, and that areas of great shortage, such as engineering, need to attract more women. Some 75% of an organisation’s customers and employees will not be white men, so its decision makers should not be, either.

There are many ways to lead. Lloyds Banking Group has set a target: it wants women to be 40% of its senior executives in five years’ time. Procter & Gamble has a big programme on developing women leaders globally. Thomson Reuters has a female management academy. Those organisations recognise that women need support and training, and a champion at board level to enable them to fulfil their potential. I see an opportunity there for politics in Westminster. I think that we are all aware that HR at Westminster is perhaps a little antediluvian, compared with HR in industry. We need to learn lessons from these organisations, which do not just set targets, but have committed people dedicated to making those targets a reality. On those programmes, women are identified and put into positions that are known as feeder jobs, in which people can acquire critical skills that they will require at board level. What I am saying is that it is not enough to get greater diversity in Parliament; we then need career progression, which needs to be managed and led from the top. There is a great opportunity there, and I urge that point on Members on both Front Benches.

[Julian Smith]

From my experience of head-hunting in business, I would say that the key element in getting more women into the positions that we are talking about is incentivising men to look at a much broader longlist of candidates. That is vital in achieving what she wants.

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. More broadly, many men, both in politics and the corporate world, now see the benefits of having a more inclusive environment. It is crucial that the head-hunting industry plays its part in supplying the longlists that he mentions. There is a lot to learn from business.

There is also outreach: we have to reach out. I hear from contacts in universities and the workplace that the Labour party is very good at that. We Conservative Members need to follow its example of going after people from a diverse range of backgrounds when they are at university or in leadership roles in business, inviting them in, and suggesting a parliamentary career to them. Hopefully, more will be Conservative than the opposite.

National Insurance Contributions Bill

Debate between Julian Smith and Margot James

Monday 4th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Before I come to my main points about this Bill, which I support, I would just like to follow on from the speech of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and talk about the big picture for a few minutes. One can quibble about the benefits or otherwise of this scheme or that one, but the Government’s economic policies and interventions have contributed to Britain becoming the fastest-growing country in the western world. Survey after survey confirms the figures, which are extremely optimistic about this economy. I sometimes think the Treasury team is, with characteristic self-effacement, almost cautious in putting forward the record of this Government in full technicolour, so I would like to take up that role this afternoon.

The Bill is a straightforward and simple measure, top-slicing £2,000 off every company’s employer national insurance bill. As such, it will provide significant help to small businesses. I have 5,200 small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency, and I welcome this measure on behalf of them all. We have heard the quotes from various organisations representing small businesses, social enterprises and so on welcoming the measure. The fact that it has such independent support ought to speak for itself.

I also wish to draw attention to the ambitious sole trader. The SMEs will have their employer insurance bills cut, but we also need to consider the small sole trader who is ambitious and wants one day to grow his or her business, just as I did. When I started my business in the 1980s, it consisted just of my business partner and me—everyone else who helped was begged, stolen or borrowed. I well remember the agony of the decision to appoint the first paid member of staff. One knows that one has to do it at some point if one wants to grow the business, but the responsibility that comes from knowing that someone walking through the door is then dependent for their livelihood on the success of one’s business really makes one stop and think. Anything that makes that decision easier, as this Bill does, has to be welcomed.

I wish to talk about a young woman in my constituency, Amy Fairley, who has a passion for flowers. She worked in a florist’s shop until about six month ago, when she was made redundant. She decided to follow her passion and dream by setting up her own florist’s shop. She did that with help from the new enterprise allowance scheme—another good scheme—and a Prince’s Trust grant and the mentorship that the Prince’s Trust also provides. I helped her to open her wonderful florist’s shop on Coventry street in Stourbridge three weeks ago. As a Prince’s Trust mentor for four years before I was elected, I have had similar experience and I was always reluctant to advise on taking on that first member of staff, because of the cost and the risk. One wonders whether the member of staff will be needed all the time, although, of course, they could be taken on part-time. The Bill will mitigate that caution.

I also wish to make the point that the Bill is part of a package of measures designed to help employment and small businesses. The reforms to employment law are also crucial, because this is not just about the cost of taking someone on; it is also about the fear that if the wrong person is appointed, the business is in for a huge headache. The Government’s doubling of the qualifying period before people can make unfair dismissal claims to two years is a huge advantage, as is the fact that they are making settlement agreements easier, obviating the need for employment tribunals, which are expensive in many cases. I know from my work as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Green that the Government have invested hugely in UK Trade & Investment and UK Export Finance, again for the development of specific programmes to support small businesses with their exports.

[Julian Smith]

May I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she has done to promote UKTI’s merits to MPs across the House and for doing that with a passion that I suspect has never been seen in this House before?

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind contribution and for his wholehearted support of that work on trade—both are much appreciated.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Julian Smith and Margot James

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I welcome the many excellent measures in the Bill that lay the foundations for a low-carbon economy, with the green investment bank being established and the proposed changes to the competition regime, which should simplify matters for business and reduce costs.

I want to focus on the employment law reform provisions, however, as that is the one part of the Bill on which I hope the Government will be persuaded in Committee to move. I want them to go a little further in redressing the balance in law between employers and employees. In no way do I seek to establish some sort of “hire and fire” culture; I very much agree that that would be to the detriment of not only employees, but business. However, I welcome the provisions enabling disputes to be resolved at a much earlier stage, without the need to go to an employment tribunal. That will be a help to both employer and employee, and it is anticipated that 25% fewer claims will end up going to a tribunal as a result, which will save public money and company time and resources. We have also heard this afternoon that any employer offer of a settlement earlier in the process will no longer prejudice the company’s position in any subsequent tribunal hearing. That is a welcome development, and I look forward to hearing further details.

Contrary to the fears that some Opposition Members have expressed, nothing in this Bill changes an individual’s statutory employment rights, but that causes a degree of concern to many of us who have been in business and therefore know how far the balance has tilted towards the rights of the employee, especially in unfair dismissal claims. I took some soundings from people with whom I have in the past been in business, and I want to quote the comments of somebody who does not want to be named. She told me:

“Tribunal culture in the UK means the employer is on the back foot. We have agreed to pay off employees (who have appointed no win-no fee lawyers) that have threatened to take us to court, even when they have no real case, as the amount of time/energy it takes us to fight our case at a tribunal is too high, even when we as employers think we are in the right. This area I feel is the most onerous for me as an employer currently. And for someone with a social conscience, I don’t like paying someone off when they are in the wrong, just because it is the most cost effective thing to do for the business.”

Research by the chamber of commerce among firms employing between 10 and 49 people has confirmed what that individual told me. It revealed that 21% of respondents had been threatened with an employment tribunal in the previous three years, and of those 37% had opted to settle out of court. Many employers of fewer than 20 people simply cannot afford the specialist HR resource required to enable them to defend their position in a tribunal. Only 20% of respondents to the survey defended their claim, and although it was heartening to read that, of those, three quarters won their case, some of the comments quoted verbatim in the research are salutary. One HR director said that he

“cannot emphasise enough how burdensome and draining it is to dismiss people who are performing very poorly or are abusing the rules.”

Another said:

“We won our claim, however the stress was off the scale, it cost our company over £20,000 for something that was never our fault.”

I welcome the review of a related matter—health and safety regulations—being undertaken by the Department for Work and Pensions. That has a considerable bearing on employment law. Although it is beyond the scope of the Bill, I hope that Ministers will confer with their DWP counterparts, as 54% of respondents to that chamber of commerce survey cited concerns about the operation of health and safety rules. A company in my constituency employing between 100 and 150 people, even though it is in many ways a model employer, suffers two or three cases a year of vexatious claims by employees, and even ex-employees, who have created a spurious claim based on an accident they had at work. The company is then in the position of having to prove to the court that it created proper conditions that should have prevented the accident—the onus is on the company to prove that it took adequate measures. That is but one example of the many areas beyond unfair dismissal where, I believe, the rights of the employee are now too far out of kilter with the rights of the employer.

[Julian Smith]

I think my hon. Friend gets an extra minute for taking my intervention. Does she agree that there is an impact on growth, because when a small company is having to deal with all these issues in employment tribunals, it is not able to focus on creating more jobs and growth? That is what Opposition Members sometimes appear to fail to understand.

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The problem is not just the cost of defending claims, but the management time involved. That detracts from the energy that companies need to fight in the market for business. There is no doubt about that.