Business of the House

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I must confess that I agree with my hon. Friend; it is really shameful that somebody who has a role with the police should criticise them when they have done everything possible to ensure that law and order is maintained, despite coming under enormous pressure. I spoke to some of the police officers who were around during the Extinction Rebellion protests. Some of them were getting up at 2 o’clock in the morning and then being on duty for 12 or 14-hour shifts, to ensure that we were kept safe. We should be enormously grateful to the police service of this country.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, I note that you did your bit for British-Irish relations at the weekend by appearing on “The Late Late Show” on RTÉ—it is good viewing, if anyone wants to watch it. This Sunday, as Vice-Chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, I shall be meeting friends and colleagues from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland and the Channel Islands as part of the Assembly’s meeting. Will the right hon. Gentleman, as the Leader of this great House, join me in recognising that, at this critical and really difficult time in our relations across these islands, the gathering together of politicians of different views and from different parts of these islands is more crucial than ever, and will give an assurance that the full support of this House will be forthcoming in future years to ensure that the Assembly flourishes and that our conversations flourish, so that we can get through this particularly difficult time in our history?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Yes, I will absolutely do that. May I also hold up the hon. Lady as an example? She is a neighbour of mine, and despite our strongly different views of the world, we have always been able to have, whether on television or in hustings debates, very civilised conversations. I think that is a model for how debate should be carried out.

Business of the House

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

On Tuesday I will launch an all-party parliamentary group on towing and trailer safety, following the tragic death of a toddler in my constituency in 2014. I am grateful for the Government’s support for the work that I have been doing on trailer safety, and for the support of Members on both sides of the House for the APPG. May I ask the Leader of the House to support the work that we all try to do in APPGs as a good way of highlighting safety issues that are vital to our constituents?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am delighted to commend and pay tribute to all APPGs, and in particular the one on trailer safety to which the hon. Lady has referred. Issues that crop up in our own constituencies—often, unfortunately, as a result of tragedies involving our constituents—can lead to real change.

Baby Leave for Members of Parliament

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) on securing this important debate, and I thank other right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. I also thank Mr Speaker, who I understand has made quite good progress over the past few years on this matter.

As a new Member, I had no idea that the day nursery used to be a wine bar, so the position of the nursery seems perfectly normal to me, which is good progress in itself. I declare an interest as the father of eight-week-old Ophelia and husband to my wife, Lucy. Ophelia was able to join me here for the first time to vote against the Third Reading of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. Although there are those who have concerns about Members taking babies through a voting Lobby, I pay tribute to the Clerks, who astutely did not count Ophelia’s vote when I walked through—quite rightly so, given that I have no idea of her views on the Government’s Brexit strategy.

I support this important motion. When I went on paternity leave—a little earlier than expected—in the run-up to Christmas, as a Back-Bench MP, I was able to clear my diary fairly easily, and my constituents were supportive, but of course I needed to be here to vote, and there were some important matters that I wanted to vote on. We should consider the use of proxy voting. I see that the Clerks use iPads when we vote, so—dare I say it—perhaps we could use an app. If we could vote without having to nod through the Lobby, that would be welcome progress. In those early days, as my hon. Friends have said, my duty as a husband and a father was to be at home to help in any way that I can, but I had to leave for many hours to come and vote here, so it would have been helpful if I had been able to vote from home or via a proxy. Formalising the process would also be helpful, because while the Whips were accommodating, the presumption was that I would be here for all votes apart from those that I had negotiated not to attend. I would rather that that was the other way around. When there are crunch votes, such as the Brexit ones, when I am sure that Ophelia would have said that I should be here if she could, I would come to vote, but the presumption needs switching.

It is important that we set the tone in this place. We should be doing the same thing that we have legislated for in the country, which seems perfectly sensible, but we also need to set the tone. Parenting is not a gender issue—at least it should not be—and I am of the firm view that a family friendly and gender-balanced economy not just is the right thing to seek, but would be good for economic growth and wellbeing.

The House may not be surprised to hear that I think that my wife is a remarkable and talented woman—

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

She is very fortunate.

[Darren Jones]

Thank you. I say that about my wife not least because during the snap election, when we were two months pregnant, I made it clear that I stood no chance of winning and that I would be able to apply for shared parental leave in my previous job as a lawyer. To make things worse, having actually won the election when I said that I was not going to—I am honoured to be here, of course—the local BBC news team had noticed a slight bump and announced our pregnancy to 1.3 million people in the region without checking first. When we received all these text messages saying, “Congratulations!”, we thought that they were about the election, but we suddenly realised that they were about Ophelia. We had not yet had the three-month scan, so we wondered how on earth everybody knew. My wife therefore had a bit of a bumpy road on the way to becoming a mum involved with a parliamentarian.

My wife is also my constituent, and she has said that it is okay for me to share her experiences over the past year, which have been quite distressing. It has been quite difficult for me to support her. She was the director of public policy at an energy company called Open Energi, which receives Government funding, and doing very well in that senior role. After the announcement of her pregnancy, she was told that her role was no longer needed and that she was being made redundant. Having worked so hard to achieve what she had, that was very distressing for her, but she is a formidable woman, so she decided to take her employer to a tribunal.

As a litigant in person, while pregnant, she cross-examined her former employers in front of a judge, who said that since the Supreme Court had decided that fees were illegal for employment tribunals, his time was increasingly being taken up by “these type” of cases. Can Members imagine the environment and the atmosphere? As one of only two women among 10 people in the tribunal room—there is no gender balance in employment tribunal hearings or sexual discrimination cases—the experience was clearly distressing, and I have now taken up that matter with the president of the employment tribunals. My wife sadly lost that case, so perhaps we need a debate about the application of burden of proof rules in this country, because it is down to women to establish a burden of proof that discrimination could have taken place, but employers can bring forward witnesses and documents to show that it did not take place—at the time, it was said that documents did not exist—and that makes it difficult for women to bring such claims.

As a father and a husband, it is perfectly sensible for me to want to lean in. It is normal for dads to want to lean in. I want my wife to achieve her aspirations as much as possible, and we want to give our children the best upbringing together. I support the motion not just because Parliament should be in line with what is happening in the rest of the country, but because it gives us the opportunity to set the tone for what we expect in a modern Britain. We should look at reforms for companies that receive Government money and at the judiciary—perhaps at even having a gender balance—and then we could achieve change in the wider economy, too. I commend the motion to the House and look forward to supporting in any way that I can.

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I welcome the comments of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the Leader of the House. On behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, I echo the thanks to the outgoing Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Hudson. From my personal experience of meeting Kathryn when I was a new Member, I know just how important the role is in supporting all hon. Members. I thank her for her work.

I also thank all those who sat on the interview panel for following a robust process and selecting a successor, Kathryn Stone. Her Majesty’s Opposition welcome and endorse the appointment of Kathryn Stone and wish her well in her new role.

Business of the House

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes a very cogent point. The Government are concerned that China continues to regard North Koreans fleeing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as economic migrants rather than treating them as refugees under the terms of the 1951 UN convention. As we all know, the scale of human rights abuses in North Korea is too severe for the international community, including China, to ignore. We have repeatedly called on the Chinese authorities at the very least to respect the fundamental principle of non-refoulement that is built into the United Nations convention, and we did that most recently at our regular UK-China human rights dialogue.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I recently met the father of toddler, Harry Studley, whom hon. Members may remember was shot in the head with an air rifle in south Bristol last July. Harry’s dad has impressed me not only with his resilience in the face of adversity—he told me that Harry is doing well—but with his determination that, as a nation, we should learn something from this incident. May we have a debate about what measures the Government can put in place to improve air rifle safety—for example, the introduction of compulsory trigger locks on these lethal weapons?

[Mr Lidington]

First of all, may I wish Harry a full recovery and express my best wishes to those caring for him and treating his injuries? The Government keep the legislation and misuse of air weapons under review. At present, we have no plans to ban or license them. The vast majority of people using air weapons do so safely and responsibly. High-powered air weapons do require a firearms licence and even low-powered air weapons are subject to a range of controls, including restrictions around their sale. A small minority of people tragically misuse air weapons in England and Wales—sometimes in the way that the hon. Lady describes—but by introducing a further set of controls we would divert police resources from controlling the other higher risk firearms, such as rifles and shotguns, which is an area where the police should give priority

Business of the House

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Gentleman raised exactly that point during the debate on the rural economy on Tuesday. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs replied to him that she recognised his point, that she continues to look closely at the issue and that,

“I will keep him up to date with progress on it.”—[Official Report, 17 January 2017; Vol. 619, c. 835.]

He has had a clear undertaking from the Secretary of State and he has reinforced his point.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Twice this week, I have raised my constituents’ concerns about cuts to council services and Ministers have simply swatted them aside. Will the Leader of the House take the opportunity to address those concerns and demonstrate that the Government are taking seriously the impact of Tory cuts on local people?

[Mr Lidington]

I accept that we have confirmed a settlement for local councils that is flat in cash terms, but we have also delivered what local authorities were asking for in certainty over a four-year funding period. We are planning legislation, which will be before Parliament soon, that will enable local government to keep all the business rates that it collects by the end of the Parliament. We have provided the power for local councils to levy a social care precept to help them with the challenges that they undoubtedly face in dealing with social care.

Business of the House

Karin Smyth Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I cannot promise a debate in Government time, but my hon. Friend has been in the House long enough to know that there may be opportunities by way of Adjournment debates or questions to Ministers that enable him to speak up on behalf of his constituents.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Figures show that one in five of my constituents are over-indebted, which is why I am bringing the Money Advice Service to Bristol South tomorrow to meet other local debt advice services and support them. May we have a debate on problem debt to help us to understand the Government’s position and their strategy for addressing this serious issue for working people?

[Mr Lidington]

We all have constituents who have benefited from debt advice, which is not always best provided by an agency that has “OHMS” stamped all over it. It is sometimes better provided through a voluntary organisation that is able to engage with people in a less rule-bound way than is usually the case with even the best-intentioned Government agencies. I will take back to my hon. Friends with ministerial responsibility the concern that the hon. Lady has expressed and ask the relevant Minister to write to her directly.

Houses of Parliament (Family-friendliness)

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I am fairly new to the House, having replaced Dame Dawn Primarolo, who came to the House in 1987 as a young woman with a young child. That was unusual at the time, when there were only 44 women MPs. I know from the work she did and led, and the work of the all-party group on women in Parliament, how much progress has been made. I am certainly a beneficiary of that, including in my constituency, which selected another woman, with three dependent children of school age. I hope to follow my predecessor’s example and am delighted to be part of the debate.

I am the mother of three boys aged 16, 13 and 10. I understand that it is quite unusual to turn up here with children already at school. I agree that one of the great things about joining this place has been the reaction among families in Bristol. My children’s friends, and the teachers and support staff from their schools, have stopped them in the street—it is quite emotional—to say, “Isn’t it fantastic what your mum is doing?” Local journalists have said to me on the side, quietly, “How are you going to manage it? That’s quite impressive.” The reaction from wider society to a woman joining Parliament at this stage with growing children has been a real shock to me. It has been a pleasure to take responsibility for making it easier and to say to people, “Actually, a lot of people leave home during the week to do their job.”

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way when time is short. I concur with all the comments made about family-friendliness with regard to children, but looking at it from another angle, does my hon. Friend agree that MPs who are carers of other family members also need time to talk and for family time at the end of the day? For instance, my husband was very ill with cancer last year and needed attention. He does not need a crèche in this place, but other family members certainly have needs.

[Karin Smyth]

I absolutely agree. I will come on to make a similar point about looking after older people.

From the mouths of babes: in the summer, my 10-year-old said to me that a boy in his class told him that he does not see his dad in the morning because he leaves Bristol before he gets up, that he gets back from work late, at 10 o’clock, and that he is away at work five days a week. I have generally been able to get home on a Thursday to pick up my 10-year-old, so I take the point made by others that some people have it worse than many of us. We are sometimes able to flex our working days and to plan around our home life. I think my little 10-year-old suddenly thought to himself, “I’m a bit better off than many others.”

I said that I was going to mention caring for older people. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) made a good point about caring for spouses and other family members. That is very important, especially for people in their 50s and 60s.

I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) about the culture here, particularly on a Wednesday, when there is a noticeable difference in the number of photographers, journalists and lobby groups—particularly young men—in this place. That reflects the fact that family-friendliness is about not only MPs and perceptions of privilege, but the wider political culture in which we operate. I praise our journalists, photographers, lobbyists and so on for their work, and I hope that by having this debate, we lend some support to that wider movement.

There are lessons to be learned from the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments about the predictability of the agenda. As the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) said, we should commend political parties. It was only through all-women shortlists that the Labour party was able to force itself to take the issue seriously and to build a weight of numbers. The Conservative A-list has also helped. We must welcome the number of women who have come into Parliament as Scottish National party Members. There is a good opportunity for Parliament to lead on this issue.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on securing this important debate and thank her for her excellent contribution.

Last night, I left the House at about 10.40 pm, after votes. I understand that that is decidedly early for this place, but it is even earlier than the leaving times of the Doorkeepers, the catering staff, librarians and all the other staff on the parliamentary estate who work around the operations of the political business of the day. The reality is that, when parliamentary life is so unpredictable, neither staff nor MPs can easily plan their real lives outside this place. The concept of family-friendliness is often seen in narrow terms—that it is the women MPs who have children who want a system to suit them. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said we should have a people-friendly Parliament. We should have a system that suits as many people as possible and that suits their lives as much as possible, and that includes the staff who work here as much as the MPs, the men as much as the women, and those with family caring responsibilities other than children.

Making parliament more family friendly is a crucial step towards achieving equal representation for women in politics, which, unfortunately, we are far from achieving. In 2015, only 29% of Members of Parliament are female. The UK is doing worse on female representation than Uganda, Zimbabwe and many of our European neighbours. The good news is that we have increased the number of female MPs since the election in May, and we have now overtaken Afghanistan—just.

Equally important to this debate is the motherhood gap in the House of Commons. That is to say, female MPs are significantly less likely than our male colleagues to have children. My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) transposed the figures a little, but the studies conducted during the previous Parliament showed that although only 28% of male MPs had no children, the figure for women was much higher—45%—which suggests that women view the life of an MP as incompatible with caring for a child. The system is geared towards the traditional view that parliamentarians are men with a wife at home to look after the children. There is no consideration of modern families that do not fit that outdated concept. The same goes for staff in this place. Are single parents, new parents and carers less likely to consider working on the parliamentary estate as a career when the system is so unpredictable? I do not know; perhaps the Minister does.

The Government have worked hard to present themselves as a modern, representative, “UK now” Government, but failing to take seriously such inherent issues in the system, which present themselves again and again, leaves our great Parliament looking more stuck in the dark ages than the gothic arches under which we sit. This matters, because a House of Commons that is truly representative of the population of the United Kingdom will be more attuned to the needs of the public. For example, it was following a surge in the number of women MPs entering Parliament 20 years ago that the gender pay gap started to be properly measured and began to close. Similarly, some of the issues that most desperately need addressing today are those that parents are acutely conscious of, such as the need for affordable childcare and the need to ensure that the housing market works for our children’s generation.

I thank all hon. Members who spoke today—particularly those who shared their personal experiences of how difficult the House can be for Members with children. I know that there is only a small sample of Members here today, but in a survey conducted by Mumsnet, which another colleague spoke about earlier, two thirds of MPs said that their job has a negative impact on their family life. One MP surveyed said:

“I have a two-year-old daughter and no-one cares if I don’t see her.”

Another senior MP said:

“I never saw my children grow up and I’ll regret this to the day I die.”

I think that is a terrible indictment of a modern working environment.

A number of excellent points have been made by colleagues today about how Parliament is failing to be family-friendly. If, as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) said, councils can make accommodation to allow new mums to bring their babies into the chamber and, as has been mentioned, the European Parliament allows elected Members to breastfeed babies during debates, is it not time for this place to open itself up to a 21st-century way of working, rather than hide behind Victorian values?

Hon. Members said that the tabloid media might seek to undermine breastfeeding parents in this place. If breastfeeding continues to be viewed as the exception rather than the rule and does not become commonplace then, yes, it is open to ridicule.

[Karin Smyth]

It is not just about elected institutions. I served as a non-executive director of a primary care trust 10 years ago, and I was able to bring my young child along to health authority meetings and breastfeed without any fear of anything going wrong. A wide range of other bodies also manage to do the same.

[Melanie Onn]

There is nothing more to add to that; it is the perfect example of how it can work in different environments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley kindly credited me for proposing that parliamentary recesses coincide with the school holidays, but I do not think I was the first to propose that. We need to take a long, hard look at how we operate. It is ludicrous that we are about to go on recess, but half term was two weeks ago. I am not going to see my son for an extended period. I have been reduced to being a parent for three nights a week, which does not feel very satisfactory. As other hon. Members said, Scottish schools’ summer holiday periods coincide with just two weeks of parliamentary recess. Giving greater consideration to planning our sitting days around term times would greatly benefit not just MPs but House staff, but that does not seem to be forthcoming. The Government still have not announced the House’s recess dates for Easter, which is just four months away. Will the Minister tell us whether there is any justification for that, other than tradition?

This is not just a legislative Chamber but a workplace and, I think, a museum. We welcome visitors from around the world to view the Palace. We invite constituents, businesses and charities to meet us, so where are the signs for the baby changing facilities? Where are the designated areas for breastfeeding? We should be leading by example and showing what a modern working environment can be. How can we lecture employers on flexible working and childcare provision if we cannot get it right ourselves and do not even seem to be trying?

Professor Sarah Childs from the University of Bristol, who is here today, has been appointed to carry out an independent assessment of gender inequality in Parliament. When I last asked the Minister about what changes are being planned to make Parliament more family friendly, she just said that the Procedure Committee had looked at sitting hours and decided not to make further changes. In this debate, we have heard that there is a wide range of other issues that we should consider in the round. I hope the Minister agrees that, once the report is published, it is right and proper to have a debate in the Commons Chamber in Government time so we can properly debate its findings.

Business of the House

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I assure my hon. Friend that there will be no changes to freedom of information without a debate in this House. I am sure that he will take part in that debate when it happens.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

My constituents are extremely worried about the National Grid’s ability to keep the electricity supply going through the winter. Will the Leader of the House bring forward a statement on what the Government are doing to assure the electricity supply and bring forward his own plans to assure us that the lights will be kept on in this place throughout the winter?

[Chris Grayling]

That is clearly an important issue. We have been dealing with a lack of investment in energy generation in this country over the past decade. The Government take that enormously seriously and monitor the situation closely. We are trying to find the right balance between ensuring that we have sufficient generating capacity in this country and fulfilling our obligations under the climate change agreements we have reached. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change will undoubtedly be available to the House throughout the winter and provide regular updates.