Respect Policy

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House approves the First Report from the Committee on Standards, Session 2014-15, Respect Policy, HC 321, which endorses proposals for the operation and review of a policy to deal with complaints of alleged bullying or harassment by Members or their staff towards House of Commons staff.

The motion appears in my name and those of the Leader of the House, the shadow Leader of the House my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), and members of the House of Commons Commission.

I want to make one thing clear at the outset: the fact that the Committee on Standards and the Commission are inviting the House to agree to a policy to deal with allegations of bullying and harassment is not a sign that there is a widespread problem. It shows the reverse: that the Commission wants to be a good employer and that Members of Parliament themselves want to make sure that any incidents of bullying and harassment are dealt with effectively.

Recent events have shown the dangers of not taking action to deal with potential problems. We are no longer in a situation where a quiet word with the Whips might be used to persuade an MP to change his or her behaviour. We need to be able to demonstrate that we do not have a culture of covering things up or of avoiding difficult issues. We also need to make sure that the system is fair and recognises that complaints need to be handled appropriately.

Although we may have very different political philosophies, those who stand for election do so because they believe in social justice, however they define it. It would be perverse for this House to be one of the few places without an effective and visible policy.

This debate and this policy are necessary because MPs are not employees of the House, but we depend on the services provided by those who are employed by the House of Commons Commission. If staff of the House are bullied by their colleagues, management can discipline those colleagues. If we as MPs bully our own staff, they have rights under employment law, as well as the support structures many parties have now put in place.

MPs, however, cannot be disciplined by the House of Commons Commission if they bully or harass House staff. We are in the position of hotel guests or other service users. If this were a hotel, services might be withheld from a particularly obstreperous MP, but that would be going against everything that the House service exists to do. It has never, ever been contemplated.

If it is to be a good employer, the House needs to have a policy in place that tackles the fact that MPs cannot and should not be subject to sanctions imposed by House management, but provides a clear framework for dealing with incidents when things go wrong. The motion gives us the opportunity to do that, and I believe we should agree it not only because we think it is right and that the House should be an exemplary employer, but for reasons of self-interest. Without such a policy, the House of Commons Commission is vulnerable to legal challenge if things go wrong.

The report by the Committee on Standards, which I Chair, briefly sets out the background to this debate. There has been, and there still is, a respect policy, which comes in two parts. The first deals with the informal resolution of disputes between Members and staff, and it remains in force. The second, which dealt with formal action if differences could not be resolved, has been suspended, because in practice it was found to be flawed, not least because it was seen as unfair to the Members being investigated. Investigation was done by a member of House staff and Members had no right of appeal, but staff did. It was quite clearly, in the Committee’s view, flawed in that way and I think most people agreed.

The note on our website on what Members can expect from the House service makes it clear that dignity, courtesy and respect on both sides are central to the relationship between Members and staff. That is generally the case. I have checked before delivering this speech, and there is not a single live complaint about a Member at present.

That is not to say that bullying is inconceivable: I think we all have to accept that it happens in almost every workplace. We operate in a high-pressure environment, and I am absolutely sure that, sometimes, things are said that are almost instantly regretted. Diffidence and patience with the status quo are not natural qualities for an MP, so a framework is necessary in case things go wrong.

The proposed policy strengthens the informal part of the process and revises the formal part of the process, so that investigation is independent and the complainant has no more rights than the person complained about.

The informal part of the process is most important. It requires Members to be told if they have upset a member of staff. I am told that, in most cases, Members have immediately apologised and taken steps to make amends as soon as they know that they have upset someone. It requires managers to look at the wider picture and consider whether difficulties arise because of a lack of capability or resources. If difficulties cannot be resolved, and both parties agree to it, there will be mediation.

These measures should mean that very few cases are taken forward to the formal stage of the process—that is, possible investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—but it is right that we should have effective measures to deal with such exceptional cases. If a complaint is made, the Parliamentary Commissioner will review the material. She will decide whether the behaviour alleged is so serious that it meets the high bar of conduct that would have the potential to

“cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally.”

Members will know that that quotation is from Members’ code of conduct.

As the respect policy itself makes clear, the commissioner may be concerned by a complaint about a brusque response in a highly charged political situation. She has the power to make recommendations to management about the handling of the situation and to settle matters informally, if both parties are willing to do so, even at such a late stage. Where it is appropriate, she will be able to investigate and report to the Committee, which will decide what action to recommend.

We recognise that cases of this kind can be difficult for both the complainant and the person complained about, so they will be handled differently from normal complaints. A far higher level of confidentiality will be observed, and names will be released only if the commissioner concludes that bullying or harassment has occurred. As hon. Members know, when the commissioner investigates the activities of a Member of this House, that fact is currently stated on the commissioner’s website, even though nothing is found against the vast majority of Members. The commissioner—like the Committee on Standards and, I believe, the Commission—thinks that that should not happen in the rare circumstances of these cases.

The Committee did not take the decision lightly to endorse the Commission’s proposals. We wanted to be sure that the existence of the formal stage of the process was not seen as an excuse for management to ignore their responsibilities towards both staff and Members. We consulted every Member of the House, and took comfort in the fact that there were very few replies on that point. We did not agree to this change until we were sure that real measures were in place to prevent problems from arising in the first place, and to stop problems needlessly escalating if they did arise.

We wanted to make it clear that this matter is primarily the responsibility of the management of the House. I welcome the fact that the respect policy recognises that difficulties may arise not simply from a Member’s behaviour, but from other behaviour. At the very first stage, it requires line managers to consider whether there is a resourcing, capacity or other issue that needs to be addressed.

We wanted staff training to make sure both that staff are appropriately trained to deal with what I shall call “customers” in difficult situations, and that managers understand their responsibilities under the new system. We understand that training has begun, and that there will be more training for staff of the House to implement the change.

We wanted it to be clear to everyone that the bar for investigations by the commissioner would be high, and we are satisfied that the new policy spells that out. We were also concerned that the new system should work for staff. We asked the House authorities to assure us that staff whose first language is not English will be adequately supported, and I am glad to say that that is included in management guidance.

We are also grateful to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for her work with the House authorities and with us. She worked with the House authorities to make sure that the human resources processes in place recognise that making a complaint to the commissioner is a last resort. She reviewed the procedures for investigation so that there is a separate appropriate procedure for use in such cases. I have already noted the higher level of confidentiality. The new procedure also involves the complainant, as well as the MP, in checking the facts in the commissioner’s memorandum. Both parties will of course have the opportunity to appear before the Committee if there are further proceedings.

There is one final safeguard. The Committee recognises that this is a major change, so we recommend that it is reviewed in the next Parliament, and we invite the House to give the House of Commons Commission, together with the Committee, powers to suspend or renew the policy. I expect the findings of the review to be published and possibly debated, if that is felt necessary.

Let me repeat that I do not expect many cases to be brought under the policy. I do not think that bullying is widespread, but that should not be an excuse not to have an effective means to deal with it. I am sure colleagues on both sides of the House would condemn bullying in any other workplace. This motion gives us the opportunity to make it clear that we will not tolerate it in our own workplace. I hope that the House will agree to the motion.

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

May I place on the record the thanks of the House of Commons Commission to the Chair of the Committee on Standards, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron), for his and the Committee’s work on this very important matter? As with everything it does, the Committee took it extremely seriously, put in a lot of work and came up with something that is thought through and detailed, and does exactly the job we had hoped it would do.

I want to pick up on two of the right hon. Gentleman’s points. The first is that it is absolutely essential that the policy is fair to all parties. It is vital that the House has a respect policy that looks after staff, but it is equally of the utmost importance that it is one in which Members have full buy-in and can feel confident, because otherwise it would not be fair to both sides. The second point is that there are no outstanding complaints at this time. By far the majority of Members treat the staff with the courtesy and respect that they so richly deserve. When it is made clear to them, most Members who have from time to time been errant in their behaviour immediately apologise to the members of staff concerned. The policy is as much a preventive measure as something to deal with a problem, and it puts us into the category of best practice employers. The way in which the right hon. Gentleman framed the opening of the debate is very much what the Commission had hoped for.

I will briefly set out why the policy is so important to the Commission. The Commission is of course the statutory legal employer of House staff, and it therefore has a very important duty of care towards them. Without effective policies on bullying and harassment, the House is more vulnerable to legal charges. There are of course policies in place for bullying and harassment of members of staff by their line managers and employers and for relations between Members and Members’ staff, but there is a gap between members of the House service and Members of the House in that, as was pointed out, we are rather more customers than employers. In that respect, the problem is that unlike the customers of most establishments, who can be shut out by the establishment’s owner if they are felt to be bullying or harassing the staff, it would be unthinkable for Members to be excluded. We therefore require a policy that works, and the respect policy seeks to address that situation.

Notwithstanding the fact that occurrences are very rare, some 7% of staff—nearly 100—experienced some form of harassment, according to a survey of staff, in the previous 12 months. For one in six of those affected, the harassment took the form of repeated incidents involving the same individual. The proportions are small, but that suggests that something like 20 to 25 House staff may experience ongoing problems with one or more individuals.

As the Committee’s report sets out, the policy initially agreed by the Commission in June 2011 proved to be flawed. It was based on policies used by other employers, but it did not fully take into account the special relationship that exists between House staff and Members. I reiterate that the Commission is very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for taking on this unenviable task. We believe that it has produced something that provides a proper mechanism for dealing with the rare circumstance of the most serious cases. The Committee has concluded that the revised policy is fair to all parties, as I have mentioned. On that basis, the Commission both thanks the Committee and commends the policy to the House for its endorsement.

I should note that, assuming the House agrees to the motion, the policy will come into effect immediately, but it will not be retrospective.

[Kevin Barron]

The hon. Gentleman says that the policy will not be retrospective. However, if somebody has a difficult relationship at the moment, something that has gone on during the past few days, weeks or months might be added to a complaint to the commissioner if she felt that it ought to be investigated. There are no such cases whatever to my knowledge, but just in case there are, I thought that we should mention that the policy would be retrospective in relation to such behaviour over many months or years that is considered at some point in the future.

[John Thurso]

I am most grateful to the Chair of the Committee for intervening to make that point. Of course, at the moment no complaints are extant, so there will be nothing retrospective about complaints that we know about and have dealt with. However, if a complaint is made now, it will of course be subject to this policy.

The House greatly values its staff and the exceptional work that they do in supporting us all. An effective respect policy is a very important part of delivering the Commission’s aim to be exemplary employer. I commend the policy to the House.