Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(2 days, 20 hours ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I am very sorry to hear that that happened to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, particularly at such an awful time for them and their family. If he will give my office the details of the case, I will raise it with the Department concerned and make sure they do a “lessons learned” exercise. We want to ensure that people are able to travel, especially at such moments.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I was recently contacted by a constituent regarding her 16-year-old son, who has sadly been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. As if that was not enough to deal with, the chemotherapy started at the end of last month and he is taking his GCSEs right now. It is very difficult, and we have found a whole raft of rules regarding when his situation can be taken into account in those GCSEs. Clearly he will miss some of the exams because of treatment or its effects. We have found out that the pathway is not at all clear and straightforward. On some occasions, only a certificate of recognition can be awarded, rather than an actual GCSE. We would really like a debate about what more we can do to make sure that the pathway is made easier for children in very difficult circumstances and their parents.
Penny Mordaunt
I am very sorry to hear that, and I am sure I speak for us all when I send our good wishes to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent and his family. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education makes a timely appearance; she may have saved me a stamp. However, I will write to her formally and make sure that she has heard what the hon. Gentleman has said. He will know how to apply for a debate, and that is an excellent topic for one.
Risk-based Exclusion
Justin Madders Excerpts(5 days, 20 hours ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). I remind the Chamber that it is now almost 11 months since the proposals on risk-based exclusion were first debated here, and it seems as though we have had a lot of discussions outside about how to best protect everyone who works here. I think there is a general acceptance, constitutional issues aside, that something needs to be done, but there is a clear disagreement about the threshold for intervention.
It is clear that there is a need for a threshold for an assessment to take place. We are talking here about a threshold for an assessment, not a threshold for an exclusion, which is why I support the amendments providing that the threshold should be arrest, rather than charge. After all, if there has been enough evidence gathered to charge someone with a violent or sexual offence, in almost any other workplace there would not be any discussion about suspending that person; it would just happen, because most employers in this country believe providing a safe and secure place of work for their staff is a given. That is the place the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) has come from with his amendments.
In fact, I am of the view that in most workplaces suspension would happen automatically following arrest. However, the amendment I support does not go that far. It just says that arrest is the point at which we should begin to consider the risk to the people who work here, and that is the key point: we are thinking about the risk to the people who work here. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) eloquently put it, people do not just ring up the police and get someone arrested on a whim. There is an awful lot of investigatory work done before we get to that point.
This is about striking the right balance between ensuring people are able to work in a safe environment and ensuring that the people Members represent do not feel disenfranchised by virtue of a Member’s absence. On our constituents’ view, this is not just about how a Member represents them here; as we have said, there are lots of other things that can be done outside this Chamber to represent people. However, there is also the other side to this, which is about how a constituent would feel if they wanted support from their MP because they were working in a place that was not dealing with a sexual predator, and they were turning up to work anxious and fearful that they might bump into them—if, for whatever reason, the employer was not allowing anything to be done because the police had not formally charged the individual. I hope we can all see how that could put the victim in an impossible situation. How can we support our constituents to insist that the employer does the right thing if we do not insist on doing those things ourselves? If we cannot get our own House in order, how can we effectively challenge the worst employment practices out there? Should we not be aiming to be one of the best places for people to work? We cannot hope to recruit and retain the brightest and best in this country, if we have a working culture from another era. Of course, this is a very special place to work—it is a privilege to be here—but that does not mean we should have to put up with suboptimal standards in how we conduct ourselves. We should aim for a culture where everyone is respected and working conditions are among the best in the country, and when those standards slip we must ensure a robust and swift process is in place.
One of the objections to some of the amendments seems to be that Members should not be subject to the same rules and standards to which we hold other people. That is wrong in principle and feeds into the sense—which a lot of people have—that we are out of touch with the real world. I also feel there is some conflation, possibly deliberately, between the use of this procedure and the finding of guilt. I would never accept that an expulsion or exclusion equates to a finding of guilt. This process will not replace the role of a court and I believe that the risk assessment process and the adjudication panel that has been suggested would deal with this in a sensible and considered way, and we would have ample opportunity to weed out vexatious complaints, although for the reasons I have stated I do not think we would even get to that point.
What we are asking to be done is no different from what we ask of others outside this place. We are asking for the same standards to be applied here as in every other workplace. The original report on this stated clearly that flexibility is the key. Mitigations can be put in place that fall short of exclusion and there are lots of examples of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) gave a number of measures that could be taken before we reach the last resort of exclusion. That is what any other workplace would do; it would assess the risk and take mitigating steps.
I am afraid we are into a very binary debate about whether this proposal means we should exclude or not. There are a number of different ways in which we can protect our staff without having to reach that point. This again shows that this place believes the rules do not apply to us in the same way that they apply to everyone else, that we do not value the victim’s voice, and that we do not believe people in here should have safe working environments and confidence that they can work in a safe environment. The public should look at us and think about whether we really do value the contribution of our staff, when we put them into these positions in the first place.
I will finish with the words of Dame Laura Cox, whose work started this whole process. She said that this place has a culture of
“deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying, harassment and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed.”
We have made progress in dealing with that, but some of the arguments tonight show that some people just have not understood that we have more to do.
Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Do not shout from the Back Benches. I have already said that this is not a time for asking the opinion of the Leader of the House. This is business questions. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady asked her question perfectly well; it is her comments from a sedentary position on which I am commenting. This is not about opinions. She asked a perfectly reasonable question, and it has been answered.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I add my voice to the tributes paid to Frank Field, whose assistance and wisdom was of great help to me as a newly elected constituency MP for a nearby seat. He is held in very high regard by my constituents, and his legacy will live on in Ellesmere Port through Ellesmere Port College and the Frank Field Education Trust.
Can we please have a debate on private parking companies? I have had a number of instances recently where these companies seem to be operating by their own rules. Constituents have put appeals in against fines. There seems to be absolutely no consideration given to technical issues, or wider questions about why tickets have been issued. Frankly, it seems to me to be nowhere close to approaching justice in the sense that Members of this House would understand.
Penny Mordaunt
I am sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents have been suffering due to poor practice by those firms. He will know that under the coalition Government, new measures were introduced to crack down on things such as clamping on private land and other practices that came from such firms, and this Government take those issues very seriously. If the situations are not resolved, I think that the hon. Gentleman, when he gets the next opportunity on 16 May at Transport questions, or at other opportunities or other business questions, should name the companies. He can do that, which I find gets people in such companies to focus on resolving these issues more sensibly.
Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In addition to all the progress that has been made on increasing monitoring of storm overflows—which was just 7% when we came to office, and is now 100%—a huge amount of infrastructure work is being done across the country to ensure that we can reduce those storm overflows when they happen, and that sewage is not released into our seas or waterways. On 12 March, Water UK published its storm overflow action plan dash- board for all overflows in England. I encourage people to go online and look at that: they can see the work that has been done, as well as future work, and the date by which it has been done. Massive progress has been made.
I agree with the other points that my right hon. Friend has made. We are supporting farmers across the whole of the UK, particularly the Conservatives in Wales, who are fighting Labour’s plans to make farmers’ lives harder. I thank my right hon. Friend for all he is doing on all fronts; he will know how to secure a debate on all those issues if he so wishes.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
May I come back to the question of the ombudsman’s report on WASPI women? I understand what the Leader of the House has said about the Secretary of State’s wanting time to read the report, but he must have known for some time that it was coming, and millions of women have been waiting to hear the Government’s response. The ombudsman itself has said that
“DWP has…failed to offer any apology or explanation for its failings”.
That is why we need the Secretary of State to come before the House. The ombudsman has indicated that it has taken the extraordinary step of bringing the report to Parliament’s attention because it realises its importance and urgency, so will the Leader of the House suggest to the Secretary of State that it might be a good idea for him to come to the Chamber tomorrow and give a statement about what he intends to do about the report?
Penny Mordaunt
I hope I gave the impression in my earlier answer that I think the Minister will want to come to the Dispatch Box—this is an important matter. I hope we will be able to do that before recess. The House will not be as well attended tomorrow as it might be next week. I hope that is satisfactory for hon. Members, and I will ensure that the Minister has heard what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I take my responsibilities to all Members of this House very seriously. Immediately after this session I will go and raise with the Secretary of State, his special advisers and his officials what the hon. Gentleman has said. I think that we can take from that—given all the other issues that he might have raised in his question to me this morning—that he thinks the Government are doing a very good job.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Can we have debate on personal responsibility? If I say or tweet something defamatory, I would expect to be responsible for the consequences of that, not the taxpayer, and I think that is what the public would expect as well. The Leader of the House’s response to an earlier question suggested that, somehow, the right hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) had credit in the bank because she did not take the redundancy payment that was offered to her, or that these payments are within the rules. If that is the case, the rules are wrong, which is why we need a debate.
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Gentleman has hit on it: if the rules have been followed and if we are not questioning the character of the individuals, it must be that the rules are wrong. I will raise this with the Department and the permanent secretary. However, I can reassure the House again that these matters have considerable oversight both from the monitoring officers in the Departments and from the propriety and ethics team.
Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
One of the strengths of the Union of the United Kingdom is that we can choose different ways of doing things, often achieving the same outcomes and certainly sharing our objectives. She will know this Government’s record in this area: we have 1 million fewer workless households and, based on recent figures, we have lifted more than 500,000 children out of poverty. We all must work on these things, whatever particular systems cover our nations.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I would like to follow up on the word salad the Leader of the House gave in response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on why the risk-based exclusion process has been pulled from the Order Paper. The Leader of the House talked about last week’s events being part of the reason. Surely last week told us that, actually, the security and safety of people who work on the estate, not just Members, is really important and should be more of a priority? She also said in response to my hon. Friend’s question that it is important we have a debate, so surely keeping the matter on the Order Paper, having that debate and ventilating the issues in the open would be the best way of reaching a resolution? I remind her that she promised it would be voted on by the end of last year. Is there a date now by which we will get to move on this?
Penny Mordaunt
I repeat my commitment to bringing the matter to the Floor of the House. I tabled it and I wanted it to be debated. I would just challenge what the hon. Gentleman said. Last week was not about the security of Members of this House. The hon. Gentleman is under a complete illusion if he thinks that that is the case. What happened last week was that the things we trust in our rule book in this place were upended for political advantage. I do not want to bring forward a debate that requires hon. Members to trust in systems we are putting in place when that trust is fractured. Let us work together to rebuild that trust. Let us address the legitimate concerns that our colleagues have raised and let us bring it back to be debated. I do not think that is a controversial view.
Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I think that when one is presented with a question like that, it is quite hard to answer it. If the hon. Gentleman would like to furnish me with some examples—any examples—of where that is happening, I will of course respond to them. This is business questions, so his question is in order, but I would point out to him that it is actually quite difficult to answer.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I want to pay tribute to my constituent Loyd, who is in the Public Gallery this morning. He is a remarkable young man. Every time the Ellesmere Port Wombles have a litter-pick he is there, come rain or shine. I also want to record my appreciation of another young constituent, Heidi, who is nine years old and who, on Sunday, will complete her cycle ride—the equivalent of London to Paris—to raise funds for Alzheimer’s Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support. She has already raised nearly £6,000, which is a fantastic achievement.
There are so many other young people in my constituency and, I am sure, every other Member’s constituency who do fantastic things for their communities and for good causes. May we please have a debate to celebrate the great work that our young people do?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for affording me, and the whole House, the opportunity to join him in praising Loyd and Heidi and congratulating them on all that they are doing. Young people in this country sometimes get a bad press, so it would be very good to have time on the Floor of the House or in Westminster Hall to celebrate all that they do.
Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this very important matter. The Health Secretary will not be answering questions until 5 March, so I shall relay to her his interest in this area. We can combat those particular major conditions partly through research. As he will know, several research missions in dementia care since 2010 have arrived not just at fantastic new drugs but made connections between dementia and those other conditions that he outlines.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I was recently contacted by a constituent who had been unfortunately caught out by an online scam involving Google gift cards. Fortunately, they got their money back, but Action Fraud decided not to investigate. On further investigation, it turns out that, at a time when online fraud is rapidly increasing, the number of fraud cases being investigated has gone down by a third. May we have a debate on what more we can do to make sure that the online world is safe from these scamsters and fraudsters?
Penny Mordaunt
I am sorry to hear what the hon. Gentleman’s constituent went through, but very pleased that they managed to get their money back. This morning we had the latest figures from the crime survey of England and Wales, and I am pleased to report to the House that fraud has decreased by 13% with notable reductions of 33% in advance fee fraud and 40% in other fraud. The actions that the police and the other agencies that support them on this matter are taking are having an effect. We have a plan and it is working.
Business of the House
Justin Madders Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important matter for the often unsung heroes of our country, who are doing a tremendous amount to feed us, build resilience and take care of our precious countryside. I will certainly make sure that the new Secretary of State has heard of his interest in this matter. He will know that the Secretary of State’s predecessor produced an action plan for rural communities, but the farming community will be a tremendous focus of the new Secretary of State. We must support farmers, as large enterprises, to do what we ask of them and to thrive.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
We know that Conservative leaders past and present are fond of travel on private jets. In respect of David Cameron, it is a matter of public record that the Treasury Committee referred the question of his travel on the Greensill Capital private jet to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for tax purposes. Can the Leader of the House confirm that the outcome of those inquiries was considered by the House of Lords Appointments Commission before he was made Foreign Secretary?
Penny Mordaunt
My understanding is that all the processes for scrutinising and approving appointments to the House of Lords and ministerial office have been followed. I think that all investigations into David Cameron—I think I can still refer to him as that—prior to his elevation to the Lords have closed. However, some things are still open. GFG’s relationship with Greensill Capital is still part of investigations being conducted by the Serious Fraud Office. The SNP gave GFG £586 million to guarantee jobs at a smelting plant that never materialised, and the group also happened to sponsor its 2018 party conference.
MPs Staff: Employment Conditions
Justin Madders Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. He will know that the report makes reference to ensuring that proper support, training and services are provided to enable individual Members to be the best employers they can be. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, whose name is also on this motion and who would be moving it were he here, has also done a huge amount of work to ensure that Members in future will be able to undertake training and get qualifications, which is tremendously important. It will help them in their work here and enable them to continue their career when they leave this place. It is a good use of budget, to enable us to be the best Members of Parliament that we can be.
I also welcome the recommendations on providing further help and support to Members and their staff in relation to employment matters. We need to ensure that all who work in Parliament are treated properly and fairly, and the package of measures announced in this report will deliver significant improvements. I particularly welcome the recommendations on improved mental health support for Members and their staff, and I know that colleagues in all parts of the House will do the same.
The report also makes a series of recommendations about the role of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. IPSA is rightly independent from both the Government and Parliament, but I note the constructive engagement that has taken place between the Speaker’s Conference and IPSA, and the formal response published by IPSA earlier this week, which sets out how it aims to address some of the challenges identified by the Conference that fall within its areas of responsibility. I am pleased to see progress on entitlements to sickness and parental leave for staff who move between Members, and I look forward to seeing proposals on greater support for Members and staff in relation to constituency offices in due course.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I think the recommendations on continuity of service are important, having seen the injustice in that area in respect of one of my members of staff. Will the Leader of the House advise on whether those measures will apply retrospectively to existing staff?
Penny Mordaunt
I am proposing this on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, but I shall certainly make sure that I can get the precise details to the hon. Gentleman. Much would depend on what is in an individual’s contract, as those will vary substantially depending on how they had worked here. I will endeavour to get an answer to him on that.
Finally, I would like to endorse the report’s conclusions about the valuable work of the Members’ Services Team. It provides expert advice and support to colleagues on a range of matters, but in particular it is a vital source of support on employment issues. The report rightly recognises the value of that support and highlights the importance of colleagues’ engaging with the team on any staffing issues that arise. I encourage any colleague with concerns about an employment issue to contact the team at the earliest opportunity, and I welcome the report’s recommendations to create a system of account managers to provide more direct support to Members in this area.
I particularly wish to thank Chris Sear, the director of the Members’ Services Team, who is retiring at the end of this month, after a long career in the House. The work that Chris has done to expand the services that provide assistance to Members of this House has been hugely welcome. He was instrumental and very helpful in conducting the largest Members’ survey ever done, which took place this year and was about what kinds of services and support people needed. I want to place on record the gratitude that colleagues have for him and his team.
I hope these measures carry the support of Members and I commend the motion to the House.