Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises an issue that is incredibly important and at the heart of this. Dame Laura makes some very specific recommendations for senior leadership to consider, but at the same time, she points out her concerns about how that can be facilitated when certain members of the senior leadership are themselves potentially part of the problem. The starting point for that is the urgent House of Commons Commission meeting that will take place on Monday. Commissioners there will want to consider very carefully what can be put in place to ensure that we can look at the recommendations independently and in a way that enables us to report back to the House on actions taken.

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

The report makes it clear that there is a small number of sitting MPs who are reported to engage in bullying and harassment on a regular basis. It is also clear that this is a long-running issue, so does the Leader of the House agree that we should scrap any limits on how far investigations can go back and get on with making this a workplace to be proud of?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman raised that point. He will be aware that when the working group looked at the issue of historical allegations, we were really keen—unanimously—that the new procedure would be able to look at all historical allegations. However, the internal legal advice that we took suggested to us that it would not be possible to create some kind of system that looked back and judged behaviour that happened a long time ago on the basis of something that had just been agreed. We checked that with external counsel, who indeed confirmed that the further back we go, the more problematic it is. I see that, in her report, Dame Laura challenges that advice. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman raised that point, because it is something that I will be very pleased to add to the list of things for the review that will start in January.

Standards

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I shall not detain the House long, because all the relevant arguments and background material are set out in the Committee on Standards’ report and in the memorandum from the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards that accompanied it.

The investigation started under Kathryn Hudson, as the Leader of the House said, and both commissioners did a meticulous job of investigating this matter over many months. They point out that the process could have been considerably shorter if Mr Paisley had been more co-operative initially, though the current commissioner is careful to point out that in the later stages of her inquiry, Mr Paisley showed a greater sense of urgency and was proactive in putting together costings for his visits to Sri Lanka.

It is those visits that were at the heart of our inquiry. Mr Paisley made three visits to that country in 2013, all of them paid for by the Sri Lankan Government. The first two visits, in March/April and July 2013, also involved members of Mr Paisley’s family—five family members on the first visit, and three on the second visit. At that time, the threshold above which a visit had to be registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests was £660. It is still not firmly established how much the two earlier visits in 2013 cost, but Mr Paisley, who initially argued for a cost in the area of £20,000, now accepts a figure of £50,000. In our view and that of the commissioner, it may have been much higher. The point is that the cost massively exceeded the threshold for registration, but Mr Paisley did not register either visit.

Mr Paisley travelled again to Sri Lanka in November 2013, again at the expense of the Government there, to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo. On that occasion, he travelled without his family, and he did punctually declare the financial benefits he received.

In March 2014, Mr Paisley, along with other MPs, wrote to the Prime Minister to urge the British Government to change their foreign policy towards Sri Lanka by withdrawing their stated support for a UN resolution setting up an international investigation into human rights abuses. In this letter, he did not declare any of the financial benefits he and his family had received from the Sri Lankan Government in the previous 12 months.

The commissioner found that Mr Paisley was in breach of the rules relating to registration in respect of the two earlier visits in 2013. He accepts this. She also found that he breached the rules by not making a declaration in his letter to the Prime Minister and, most seriously of all, that he breached the rule against paid advocacy in that letter by lobbying the British Government to confer an exclusive benefit on a foreign Government from which he and his family had accepted financial benefits within 12 months of having received them. Mr Paisley disputed these findings of the commissioner. On his failure to declare, the commissioner points out that his arguments are based on a misunderstanding of the rules. We share the commissioner’s view, and we concluded that Mr Paisley was in breach of the rules of declaration.

On paid advocacy, the situation is slightly more complicated, but we and the commissioner both came to a clear decision. Mr Paisley argues that he did not breach the paid advocacy rule on two grounds. The first is that the rule, as it stood in 2014, prohibits advocacy that seeks to confer benefit exclusively on a body outside Parliament from which Members have received a financial benefit. Mr Paisley claims that his letter to the Prime Minister was not seeking to confer a benefit exclusively upon Sri Lanka in that the British Government stood to benefit too because they

“would not have had to pay for the internationalisation of the internal political affairs of another country through the auspices of the UN.”

We were not persuaded by this argument. We point out that, in diplomatic terms, the UK would arguably have suffered at least as much as it gained by withdrawing its publicly announced support from an initiative aimed at promoting international human rights observance. In financial terms, Mr Paisley supplied no evidence to support his view that this shift in policy would have saved money for the UK Government. We think that it is entirely reasonable to interpret his letter to the Prime Minister as seeking to confer a benefit exclusively on the Sri Lankan Government.

Mr Paisley’s other argument arises from an apparent inconsistency in the guidance provided in 2014 on the paid advocacy rule. The Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests drew our attention to this matter, which had not been raised in the commissioner’s original memorandum. We thought it only fair to share the information with Mr Paisley, and offer him the opportunity to submit further evidence addressing this point. He has done so, and we have carefully considered it.

I should mention that we and the commissioner have been careful throughout this investigation to assess Mr Paisley’s conduct against the rules and the guidance that actually applied back in 2013 and 2014, taking no account of any subsequent modifications that are not relevant to the case. Although we acknowledge that there was indeed inconsistent guidance in 2014—the House has subsequently put that right—we are clear that this does not exonerate Mr Paisley from breaching the paid advocacy rule. We set out our reasons in paragraph 27 of the report, but I will mention just the first reason because it is decisive in itself. Even if one accepts Mr Paisley’s interpretation of the rule, rather than that of successive commissioners, it would only exempt Mr Paisley’s own visit to Sri Lanka from the application of the rule; it would not exempt those of his family, which represent a significant financial benefit received by Mr Paisley.

We were therefore in no doubt that the commissioner was right to find that Mr Paisley breached the rules in respect of registration, declaration and paid advocacy. In assessing a suitable sanction, we considered what might be taken to be mitigating and aggravating factors. Mitigating factors are Mr Paisley’s apology for failing to register, his recent activity in analysing the likely costs of the visit, and his acceptance that he needed a “far greater understanding” of the rules. Aggravating factors are the scale of the unregistered, undeclared hospitality received by him and his family, grounds for thinking that the failures to register were, to use the commissioner’s words, “not inadvertent”, and his delays in dealing with the commissioner in the early stages of her inquiry.

Taking these factors into account, we concluded that Mr Paisley had committed serious misconduct, and that his actions

“were of a nature to bring the House of Commons into disrepute”,

which is a further breach of the code of conduct. Because we regard this as an especially serious case, we have recommended that Mr Paisley be suspended from the service of the House for a period of 30 sitting days, starting on 4 September 2018.

The motion before the House today makes separate provision for the withdrawal of Mr Paisley’s salary, and I should say a word or two by way of explanation about that. The intention of the Committee was that Mr Paisley should be suspended from the service of the House for 30 days, and that he should forfeit his parliamentary salary for an equivalent period—that is, also 30 days. However, I have been advised that the effect of simply suspending him for 30 sitting days without making separate provision for his salary is likely to be that he will automatically forfeit that salary for a period longer than 30 days, because of the inclusion of non-sitting days in the overall period of suspension. That was not the Committee’s intention. In retrospect, we could have been clearer about that in the wording of our report. I am therefore grateful to the Leader of the House for having acceded to my request to table today’s motion in a form that makes clear the Committee’s intention and avoids any ambiguity over the period of time for which Mr Paisley’s salary will be withdrawn.

We also recommend that Mr Paisley should register the benefits he received from the Sri Lankan government, which will be italicised in the Register to indicate that they are a late entry.

Finally, I should mention that the lay members of the Committee played a full and active part in the drawing up of the Committee’s report, which they are in full agreement with.

Question put and agreed to.

[Mr Speaker]

The House has agreed to the motion in the name of the Leader of the House to suspend the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for 30 sitting days. Under the terms of section 5 of the Recall of MPs Act 2015, I am now required to write to the relevant electoral officer, informing him or her that a Member has met one of the conditions that make the Member subject to a recall petition under that Act, namely that, following a report from the Committee on Standards in relation to the MP, the House of Commons has ordered the suspension of the Member from the service of the House for a period of 10 sitting days or more.

Any recall petition will be administered in accordance with the provisions of the Act by that electoral officer. For those who take a keen interest in these matters—I am partly taking the time to state all this because it is the first occasion upon which I have been required so to act—I would add that the electoral officer has 10 working days to set up and open the petition for signature, or longer if it is not practicable to do it within that time. If the petition achieves the necessary number of signatures—at least 10% of the number of eligible registered electors in that constituency—in the specified period of six weeks, the electoral officer notifies me and the seat is made vacant from the date of that notification.

I hope that explanation is helpful to the House. This is a regrettable state of affairs, but I thank the Leader of the House for what she said in moving the motion and I would like to thank the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron), the Chair of the Standards Committee, for briefing the House in the way that he has done.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, and I look forward to the publication of her report next week. I think that it will make a useful contribution to the general debate that we are having about these issues in the House.

Let me start by thanking the Leader of the House for her opening contribution, and congratulating her on the leadership that she offered throughout the deliberations of the steering group. It seems a long time since the group was formed after all the party leaders had met. This has been quite a journey, as I think all of us who have been involved will agree. Certainly, during my 17 years in the House, I have not been involved in a piece of work that has been so detailed, so considered and so comprehensively reviewed, and rewritten on several occasions.

That says a great deal about the diligence of all the members of the group, many of whom are in the Chamber today, and the amount of work and effort that we have all been prepared to put in—particularly in trying to get down to London from Scotland on Monday afternoons in time for the meetings with staff. I think that that effort should be recognised. I also thank all the members of the secretariat who are sitting in their Boxes this afternoon for their hard work, and the commitment and the sheer effort that have gone into the delivery of this very good report.

The report is a joint piece of work which has involved Members of this House and the House of Lords, but, most important, it has involved members of staff and trade union representatives, as has already been recognised today. That is a novel and innovative way of working, and I cannot commend it enough: I think it is great. I think the involvement and buy-in of members of staff and their union representatives will give the report more credibility in the House, and that people will be reassured that it was designed not by Members of Parliament but—as the report says—by the parliamentary community. It was designed by the parliamentary community, for the parliamentary community. I hope that that will be recognised, and that the report will be accepted on that basis.

The report is a significant and ambitious piece of work, which I hope will help to redefine the culture in our Westminster workplace. Some appalling incidents and issues arose towards the end of last year, and we recognised then that something awful was happening in our workplace that had to be tackled. The efforts made by all parties in the House to do that properly should be commended. I think that the most important part of the report is the first sentence of the first paragraph, which states:

“It is vital that all those who engage with Parliament, whether working or visiting, are treated with dignity and respect”.

That is an obvious statement, but it cannot be repeated enough. It underpins every other part of the report, and every part of the work that we have undertaken.

In the last few months, we have tried to make sense of the motion that was passed in February, when the House agreed unanimously to proceed. The way in which the workstreams have been designed during those months has been very helpful and useful, enabling us to identify particular issues that needed to be addressed and ensure that there was a practical way forward. Hopefully, we now have a robust and effective regime that everyone in Parliament will be able to endorse and support.

That regime offers a strong foundation to promote better behaviour and improve the culture of Parliament. It delivers the commitments set out in the motion that was passed by the House in February, and, specifically, it helps to deliver a new behaviour code that recognises the need for Parliament to meet the highest ethical standards of integrity, courtesy and mutual respect. That has underpinned the work of the group over the past few months.

There will be an independent complaints and grievance scheme to underpin the code. There will be procedures to deal with reports of sexual harassment, which will include the provision of a specialist independent sexual violence advocate service and an independent specialist investigator. There will be a system of training to support the code, and work will be done to effect cultural change in order to support its principles. The Leader of the House is right: no other legislature in the world has attempted to do such ambitious work in this regard. Hopefully, it will set a standard for other legislatures not just throughout the United Kingdom but throughout the world, by showing what can be done when everyone gets together and tries to make progress.

There is always more to be done. As the report says, reviews will be held six and 18 months after implementation to ensure that we have made the necessary progress and can address the many issues that will doubtless arise. I am pretty certain that we have not managed to cover everything. I know that there have been many conversations and debates about other matters that could have been included in the report. I think that the reviews will be a useful starting point which will help us to establish whether anything needs to be covered further, and will, I hope, define and determine future work and inform the policies of the future.

Several issues consumed the group. For instance, we spent a great deal of time dealing with the issue of historic cases. I think there was general disappointment that the new scheme could not cover such cases, and we tried at least to do something to ensure that they could be taken up. Legal advice has, of course, been swirling around, and I invite Members to read, in the appendices of the report, about the advice that the group secured, so that they can reach their own conclusions.

I hope that what the Leader of the House has said about enabling people to come forward with historic cases will satisfy the House. It is disappointing that that could not be included in the scheme, but there is a route for such cases to be addressed, and I hope that Members will find that sufficient. We are well aware of the Dame Laura Cox review, and hope that it will inform some of the views that we will be able to take in six months’ time, when we presume that Dame Laura will be able to report to Parliament.

I think that the new direction offered to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is equally important. We concluded that the PCS remained the only viable authority for the assessment and handling of sanctions. Being asked to consider issues relating to behaviour and bullying will present new and significant challenges. However, the commissioner is entirely independent, and it is almost impossible to ensure that the independence currently enjoyed by the PCS can be replicated elsewhere. Obviously, the report contains new guidance on the operation of the PCS.

The chairman of the Committee on Standards, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron), has tabled an amendment to the motion, and several concerns have been raised about transparency. That is just one of the tensions that emerged throughout our deliberations. I think that every member of the steering group was profoundly disappointed by the prospect of the loss of a degree of transparency to address the issue of confidentiality for those who might be minded to come forward. I will listen carefully to what is said by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) before I finally decide on my position, but I am veering towards what was said by the Leader of the House, and I hope to be able to accept her views on confidentiality. That has to be at the centre; everything has to start from that.

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman be happy as a Member of this House if somebody went to the local press and said that he had been accused of breaching the code of conduct—not the new code of conduct, but the current one—and there was nobody to deny that an investigation was taking place, so he just had to accept the accusation?

[Pete Wishart]

In all honesty and candour, I would not be happy with that, but we are trying to secure that the starting point is confidentiality for the people who come forward. There are compromises and things that are uncomfortable and unsatisfactory, and perhaps in the six-month review—this is a request to the Leader of the House—we can start to look at this again. I understand totally both sides of this: I hate the idea that we are losing transparency on issues to do with the normal work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and we must try to address this further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment (a), in paragraph (4), leave out from “Report;” to the end.

I wish to begin by paying tribute to the work of the Leader of the House and her colleagues on the steering group. The Select Committee on Standards has worked very closely with the steering group on the various work-streams over the past few months. There is one issue over which we disagree, and I have tabled an amendment to deal with it, which I will come to shortly. Because I and some of my Committee colleagues have tabled that amendment, under the rules of procedure we are not able to put our names to the main motion; otherwise, I personally would certainly have done so.

I want to emphasise that, this one area apart, the Standards Committee is completely in accord with the steering group and its delivery report. We strongly support the work that has been done to bring Parliament into the modern age in terms of personal conduct. This is not about complicated rules or codes or Standing Orders; it is about ordinary human decency.

People should not bully or harass other people. They should not sexually harass them or abuse their power. That is obvious, and yet not everyone in this institution has behaved in a morally decent way. Parliament should be giving a lead on this, but we have been lagging behind. The Standards Committee made a big effort some years ago to expand the code of conduct to include some aspects of personal behaviour, but this was undermined when it came to be decided in the House by what I may call today “the forces of reaction”. Now we have another chance, and we must take it.

The Committee set out its views in a report published last week. This focuses on matters which are the direct responsibility of the Committee—in particular, complaints against Members and the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. We have worked with the steering group to develop proposals to ensure that Members are properly held to account while maintaining an independent, fair, trusted and effective process.

We support the new parliamentary behaviour code. We propose that it should be incorporated in the Members’ code of conduct, alongside an additional rule stating that:

“A Member shall treat his or her staff, and all those working for or with Parliament with dignity, courtesy and respect.”

This will ensure that Members can be held fully to account for any instances of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment. The motion before the House today will achieve that.

We have given a great deal of thought to how the complaints process will work under the new system. Clearly it has to be sensitive, and supportive of the people who wish to bring forward complaints, but at the same time it must follow the principles of natural justice and be fair to the people who are complained about. We believe that the new system should build on the strengths of the existing system, in particular the role of the independent parliamentary commissioner, while tackling some of its weaknesses. We and the steering group propose that investigations relating to complaints against Members should be overseen by the independent commissioner.

In our report, we set out the background of the current commissioner, Kathryn Stone, who was recruited on merit through open and fair competition. She has a background in child protection and social care, and she has shown independent-mindedness in previous posts, including the particularly sensitive posts of commissioner of victims and survivors in Northern Ireland, commissioner of the Independent Police Complaints Commission and chief legal ombudsman for England and Wales. She also ran a charity for victims of crime, including sexual offences, for 11 years. I have had the privilege of seeing Kathryn in operation, and I have no doubt at all that she is a tough-minded person who will be fiercely independent in carrying out her new responsibilities.

The role of the Committee on Standards under the new system will be to carry out any appeal function that might be required. The ultimate decision on sanctions in serious cases will be taken by the House itself on the basis of a report on the case from the Committee, with the complainant anonymised and the report subjected to any redactions that the Committee considers necessary to protect the complainant. I know that some people are sceptical about involving the Committee because they think it will be a case of MPs marking their own homework. I have heard that view quite a few times in the media. I understand that point of view, but it does not reflect the reality of how the Committee operates. In particular, it does not take account of the crucial role of our independent lay members. There are now equal numbers of lay members and MPs on the Committee.

The lay members’ role is not widely understood. Our report gives more detail on this, and I urge Members to read it. In particular, they might like to look at the CVs of the lay members, which are set out in the appendix. They are members of the public, chosen on merit through open and fair competition, from diverse backgrounds and with a wide spread of experience and skills. None of them has been an MP, and nor are they in any way part of what people would call the parliamentary establishment. In general, the lay members work closely and harmoniously with the elected Members.

The Committee—like other Select Committees, and arguably more than most—proceeds by consensus. I have chaired other Select Committees in this House that have not had the type of consensus that the Committee on Standards works to. However, the lay members do not have voting rights—which we are aware of now—partly because of a concern that to confer such rights on them might open the work of the Committee to challenge in the courts. This concern is based on the ground that it is not a properly constituted Select Committee entitled to the protection of article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689. Notwithstanding this, any lay member has the power to append an opinion to a report of the Committee. That power has never been exercised, but it has been seen as an essential safeguard for the lay members’ independence. Any one of them could at any time express an opinion on any of our reports dealing with Members’ conduct, but they have never done so because of the consensual way in which we operate and because of the fairness with which we adjudicate against Members of the House.

Indeed, there have been only two occasions on which formal votes have been held since lay members first joined the Standards Committee. The most recent was in May this year. That led us to review our procedures, because there was clearly a flaw in the arrangements. Lay members can append an opinion to a Committee report but they do not have such a right if the Committee divides on a motion not relating to a report. As a general rule, this does not matter because most Committee decisions relate to reports. Reports are how we announce our decisions on individual cases. However, at the meeting in May, two votes took place on motions relating to the commissioner’s right to start an investigation. This drew attention to the fact that lay members had, in those unusual circumstances, no way of putting their views on record.

We have therefore introduced a new system of what we call indicative votes. This means that before the Committee has a formal vote involving only MPs, it should have a non-binding vote involving the whole Committee. We give more detail about this in our report. The motion before the House today will make this binding on the Committee, as we requested. In fact, the motion goes further than we requested, because it requires indicative votes to take place before all Divisions, including those on reports. We discussed this in the Committee last Tuesday and we are entirely happy with that. I should repeat that the vast majority of Committee decisions are taken by consensus. The point of the new procedure is to make it even less likely that things will be pushed to a formal vote. I certainly hope that that will be the case.

I should also mention that it would be wrong to think of the Committee as consisting of two opposing blocs: lay members and MPs. Except in relation to formal voting, both types of members are treated in exactly the same way and we work as a unified team. We are aware that indicative votes are an interim measure. Along with a majority of my colleagues on the Committee, I would like to see full voting rights given to lay members. We have called on the Government to bring forward primary legislation to guarantee that free speech in the Committee is protected by parliamentary privilege, as set down in the Bill of Rights 1689, in order to allow the extension of full voting rights to lay members. I hope that the Government will respond positively to this request.

Finally, I come to the one point of disagreement between the Committee and the steering group. This relates to the proposal in the motion to change the existing system under which the commissioner publishes details of ongoing investigations on her website. We entirely accept and support an extension of confidentiality in relation to complaints under the new system, particularly in relation to sexual harassment. There is a real need to ensure that victims of sexual harassment are given the confidence to use the new system, and confidentiality will play an important part in achieving that. We set out in detail in our report how this will operate, and we are in agreement with the steering group on that.

The difficulty for us arises from the proposal to extend confidentiality to complaints under the existing code that relate not to bullying and harassment but to financial misconduct or the abuse of House facilities. At the moment, the commissioner announces the names of Members when she launches an investigation, along with a brief statement as to the nature of the alleged offence. We can see from the commissioner’s annual report that the vast majority of complaints that go to her never get anywhere near to an investigation. They normally involved wild allegations that are made without substance or evidence, and they effectively go nowhere. Of those that are investigated, very few come to the Committee for adjudication. The commissioner rectifies people’s misapplication of the rules on issues such as the misuse of parliamentary envelopes, for example, so we do not see that this is a major issue for the House.

The rules were agreed by the House some years ago in the wake of the expenses scandal, and were seen then as an important way of demonstrating transparency and openness. I was on the Standards Committee from 2005 to 2010, and I was a winger during the expenses scandal. I can tell the House that there was a real need for openness at that time, and a real need to let the people of this country know that we were being transparent and open in our dealings on their behalf. We believe that transparency and openness should continue to apply. There is no doubt that if the House votes for the Leader of the House’s motion today without amendment, many people outside will criticise us for rolling back the openness that was agreed back in 2010 following the expenses scandal.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

My question is simple. Under the plans proposed by the Leader of the House, is there any chance at all that an MP who is under investigation for sexual misconduct would be named?

[Sir Kevin Barron]

No, there is not, and I will go on to that. What the amendment does to paragraph 4 comes after the issue to which the hon. Lady just alluded. We are not going to stop anything. As I have said, confidentiality is crucial to the policy’s success.

[Rachael Maskell]

The reality is that this is about amendment of the Standing Orders, which govern the procedures of the House, so while I accept that the motion is not necessarily in the right place, without the amendment it could lead to the identity of a reporter being exposed.

[Sir Kevin Barron]

I will say—this is an aside—that I have been in this House for 35 years, and I have seen many allegations made against Members of Parliament for all sorts of reasons. Quite a lot of them come from the press, the television or stings in the media, and the idea that we have anything to shy away from in these decisions is not true. We agree that sexual harassment and bullying cases require confidentiality to ensure that people will come forward and speak out so that action can be taken. The Committee carefully considered the Leader of the House’s arguments for making the changes, and we understand why she has put them forward. However, we do not think that they outweigh the reputational damage that may arise if we go ahead with this proposal as drafted. It will be presented as MPs trying to cover up their misdoings.

The proposal is also good news for anyone who wants to smear an MP. They can simply tell the media that the Member has broken a rule and is under investigation, and, since the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards will effectively be gagged, she will not be able to confirm or deny it. The rumour will continue and no one will have the authority to put the record straight. Members ought to remember that that could happen. On most occasions, that is how things work for the Committee on Standards as it operates under the current code of conduct.

The proposal goes beyond the independent complaints and grievance policy and is not essential to it. We do not believe that the publication of whether a Member is under investigation will cause irreparable damage to that Member’s reputation. I could cite the example of the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), who was recently under investigation by the commissioner following a complaint. It was in the national press and on national television, but it does not seem to have done his career any harm whatsoever because he was appointed Foreign Secretary last week.

The Committee was unanimous on the issue. All the lay members have written a joint letter to me, which has just been posted on our website, and I will read out the key paragraphs:

“Through our involvement in the work of the Committee we recognise the unusual, and sometimes precarious, nature of the role of MPs, the media interest they deal with on a daily basis and therefore, the importance MPs rightly place on their reputation. We also recognise the importance of the reputation of the House and the impact the actions and behaviours of MPs can have on how this is viewed.

Our experience to date suggests that publication of an announcement that an investigation is taking place does not cause significant damage to an MP’s reputation and, on a number of occasions, the matter is already in the public domain through the media. Therefore, in our view, the announcement can provide assurance that concerns are being handled independently and in a fair and impartial manner.

Our view is that the current practice followed by the Parliamentary Commissioner on Standards, and explicitly agreed by the House in 2010, creates the right balance between the individual reputation of MPs and the collective reputation of the House. Any proposals to limit this approach would be a detrimental step in continuing to build the credibility of the reputation of the House.”

I think those views make the case for the amendment very well.

The reason why the Committee on Standards has lay members is probably because, back in 1999, I was appointed as a lay member of the General Medical Council. Three Members of Parliament were appointed to it at that time, and I dealt with fitness-to-practice cases where doctors were in front of us, for example, and I thought that I played a constructive role. The first time that I said that the Committee on Standards ought to have lay members I remember a few sets of eyes widening, but the way that the lay members have operated for years now has been to the credit of this House. It certainly gives us a lot more credibility than if MPs were marking their own homework. When this motion is put to a vote, I hope that Members will recognise that lay members are helping us to change the culture in Parliament, just as the report does, which I do not take anything away from.

Obviously, the Committee on Standards will accept the decision of the House on this matter, and my colleagues on the Committee and I look forward to giving every assistance we can to the new complaints system as it is implemented. I repeat my congratulations to the steering group on its marvellous work. The acceptance of the report today marks significant progress towards building further public confidence in the standards expected of all Members of the House and shows our determination to uphold the rules if they are not met.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

We just need to think through how this works. The ultimate sanction of either expelling a MP or suspending them for a period where the recall provisions would kick in would be a decision for the House, not for the Committee on Standards—the whole House would be voting on it. Obviously, the House would be furnished with the report from the parliamentary commissioner and the report from the Committee on Standards. The valuable change we made when we introduced lay members was making MPs aware that, even if the MPs on the Committee had taken a certain view, the lay members can have their views expressed in the report of the Committee.

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

indicated assent.

[Mr Harper]

I see the Chairman of the Committee nodding, so I have got that right. That provision gives both the wider House and members of the public confidence that the information put before the House is not just the views of MPs; it is also the views of lay members of the Committee. That brings a useful check on our views about what is and is not appropriate behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment (a), after “others,”, insert

“in consultation with the Committee on Standards and the Parliamentary Commission for Standards,”.

The Committee on Standards has discussed the working group’s report and authorised me yesterday to write to the Leader of the House setting out its unanimous view. The letter was published on the Committee’s website. The Committee welcomes the report and strongly supports its commitment to zero tolerance of sexual harassment, bullying and harassment within the parliamentary community.

Members will have seen that an amendment, which was tabled yesterday, was signed by all the elected members of the Committee, calling for the Committee on Standards and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to be formally consulted as part of the process of implementing the working group’s recommendations.

We were a little surprised not to have been mentioned in the motion, as the House has given the Committee and the Commissioner important roles in dealing with the conduct of Members. May I say to the Leader of the House—I am sure I can say this on behalf of all members of the Committee—that I welcome what she said earlier in relation to the Standards Committee and the Parliamentary Commissioner being involved in future work.

The House should take note of the fact that we are currently carrying out a long-planned review of the code of conduct, which will be announced in due course. The current review will obviously be informed by the working group’s report. As Members have said, the Committee is unique among Select Committees in containing lay members. Those lay members, along with the Commissioner, provide a much needed element of independence in the current standards system.

May I just react to one or two exchanges that have taken place this afternoon? It is true to say that lay members are not allowed to vote. That was the wish not of the Standards Committee at the time we set up the first three lay members many years ago, but of this House. My understanding is that the House did not want to bring the law inside this place and inside its Committees.

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) has been talking about bringing in the law. As I understand it, that would be a big step. I think the reason why lay members were not given a vote was that we were advised that we could not take them on without bringing the law into the Committee system. I still think that if we are going to legislate on that at any stage, we should give that some consideration.

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

[Sir Kevin Barron]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but just let me say this: I do not understand the case that he mentioned—about the judge taking a harder line on a case than the Committee did. We are not involved in taking our judgments to law. The law is a completely different process. From time to time, we will refer Members there if it is felt that there is anything that is a matter for the law and not for the Committee.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think he knows the case to which I was referring. I will not name it, because it is too tiresome. It was a case in which the Committee adjudicated on someone who then tried to make the same case in a court of law under a completely separate jurisdiction, and he lost his case. He was also criticised by Ofcom. The point is that the proposals that PACAC has made are not about bringing the judiciary into our own proceedings—this is not about that—but about the House appointing our own legal person to make these adjudications on behalf of the House, and on behalf of his Committee so that he has a far more unimpeachable judgment handed to his Committee on which to act than he is compelled to work with at the moment.

[Sir Kevin Barron]

I think I now know the case that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. The person in question did not agree with what happened to him, and he went to court and got nowhere. If it is the case I am thinking about, the court supported exactly what the Committee had said about the individual involved. Let me move on.

As hon. Members will know, the current system has developed as a series of merely reactive measures in response initially to the cash for questions scandal in the 1990s and, more recently, to the Members’ expenses scandal. This means that it is arguably skewed too much towards issues of financial impropriety—important though they are—and neglects other aspects of Members’ conduct and behaviour towards other people.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions financial impropriety, but the challenge that we now face, particularly in relation to sexual harassment, is finding the balance between Members’ personal lives and the time spent actually conducting their parliamentary duties. Does he foresee any questions about that as we implement these policies?

[Sir Kevin Barron]

That issue has to be looked at. I think the hon. Lady was there when I gave evidence to the working group. I finished by mentioning a case that was in the media in October last year, and said that this House will have to come to a decision on what is a personal and private activity and what is not. That is something that we may be asked to do in the coming months.

Over the years, the Independent Standards Commissioner and the Standards Committee have done their best to try to address this imbalance, and have looked at possible ways of updating the current code of conduct, particularly in relation to issues arising from Members’ conduct. In the past, the House has resisted attempts to incorporate some of these changes, but I am glad that the working group’s report has given fresh impetus to developing a more comprehensive system of standards and behaviour.

The Committee contains a pool of expertise on the part of both elected and lay members that we believe will be of real value in developing the new processes. We are keen to be of assistance, and I am pleased to say that we now have a meeting in the diary with the Leader of the House to discuss how we can help. In my letter to the Leader of the House, I comment that

“as is inevitable with such ambitious and far-reaching proposals, there are a number of challenges concerning detail and process, as well as some issues of principle, which will need to be addressed as part of the implementation”.

My letter sets out what these are, so I will not detain the House long in summarising them.

We will need to consider how the new arrangements will work alongside the existing system. It is crucial that the new systems should be seen to operate fairly and impartially. Due process is important because it secures the rights of everyone involved. One proposal in the report—that a parliamentary investigation might proceed in parallel with police inquiries—would represent a clear breach with the existing practice, which is set out in a memorandum of understanding between the Committee, the commissioner and the Metropolitan police, so it will require careful consideration. The implications of the report’s proposals on anonymity will need to be thought about carefully. All of this is clearly a matter for future discussion. The Committee and the commission are likely to be involved in the sixth workstream mentioned by the Leader of the House.

Today I simply want to express the Committee’s support for what the working group is trying to achieve, and to assure the House that the commissioner, my colleagues and I are committed to working closely with the steering group to turn the new system into reality as soon as possible.

Comments were made earlier about the lay members not having a vote in the Committee. It is many years since there has been a vote in the Standards Committee. We work on the basis of getting the agreement of all members. But when the Committee agrees a report, each one of the seven lay members is asked whether they want to put down anything other than what is included in the report. That has never happened yet. They have far more power, each individual one of them, than the seven elected members put together. I hope that the House begins to understand that and stops repeating that this Committee is marking its own homework. It is not. It is a Committee of this House with lay members. We should be looking at having lay members on other Committees as well. I argued for this for many years before we actually got it. I sat on the General Medical Council as a lay member, sitting in judgment over doctors and other health professionals on occasion. We should not be afraid of bringing lay members here and giving them the respect they deserve. The Committee is independent, notwithstanding the absence of a vote.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

It is good to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), but I wonder how many times people have said in this place, “This is a critical time of national importance, and therefore we should do nothing.” I am sure those words have rung in many people’s ears.

I declare an interest: after the 1840 fire, the stone for the building we now sit in was brought from my constituency. Quarried near a village called Anston, it came via the Chesterfield canal. This icon we have lived in for all this time is something that the people of my constituency like and enjoy, and they—especially children at local schools—are very proud of where it came from. Most of those who, like me, worked in industry and have looked at the health and safety issues here say, “You need to sort that out, Kevin. It’s not as it should be.”

This place is changing quite rapidly. I have been here longer than most, but for the last few weeks, for the first time, I have had workmen outside my office window. There would be nothing surprising about that, except that my office is at the very top of the building, above Speaker’s House, overlooking the Thames. As everyone here knows, work on the roof has been going on for quite a long time now, because of the state the roof is in. When I came to the Chamber today, along the corridor by the Hansard offices to a lift that brings me down to Members’ Lobby, I saw some steel props holding up the roof. It looks a bit like my workplace before I came into Parliament—Maltby colliery. There are some yellow covers, but the props are pinned on the carpet and holding the roof up in the corridor—such are the needs that this House has.

Many hon. Members have talked about the money, so let me look in this excellent publication answering Members’ frequently asked questions about the restoration and renewal programme. We have been—I have three decades’ experience of this—in a position of patch and mend in this place. The publication states:

“Nearly £60 million was spent on essential work to the Palace during 2015/16, £49 million was spent the year before that, and the backlog of essential repairs”

was

“estimated at more than £1 billion in 2012”.

It continues:

“in turn, the risk of system failure, is growing significantly over time. By 2020, some 40% of the mechanical and electrical plant…will be at an unacceptably high risk of failure. By 2025, it will be more than 50%.”

I worked with my hands before I came here, and I would not want to be responsible for some of the kit I have seen when looking around. When I worked underground as an electrician, I was responsible for keeping equipment in proper order so it would not blow up, probably taking hundreds of lives with it. Some of the work here needs to be sorted out, and sorted out quickly.

I listened to the talk about cost, and I looked at the 2014 figures for the three options we have. The cost given for the rolling programme, taking place over 25 to 40 years, is £5.67 billion; for the two-phase approach, taking between 9 and 14 years, £4.42 billion; and for the full decant, single-phase approach, £3.52 billion.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Kevin Barron]

No, because other people want to speak.

Last night, the HS2 Bill was debated in this Chamber. In 2010, it was estimated that it would cost £32.7 billion, and then it went up to £55.7 billion. In 2016, the National Audit Office said it had a running cost overrun of some £7 billion, and most people on the Conservative Benches voted in favour of it. I can tell the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who is no longer in his place, about the cost overrun on most things—you know about them if you get somebody in to build an extension on your building. They cannot put in a bathroom without cost overruns. It is about time that this House took the right decision and sorted itself out. Of course we love this iconic place, but we will not like it if we cannot sit in it because of emergencies that may come along. I shall be supporting amendment (b) to motion No. 1 in the Division Lobby tonight.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. It is a matter of fact that recall is already set in law, so it is a possibility under certain conditions. The working group has not yet finished its work or its evidence taking on exactly how that can be brought to bear here, but we are clear that there will be ultimate sanctions. Let us also be clear that the issue for Parliament is not one that affects Members only; it affects peers, Members’ staff and other staff around the parliamentary estate, so there is quite a large amount of work. That is why I have been clear that the work on sanctions needs to be considered further to ensure that they are fair both to the person alleged to have committed something bad and to the complainant who deserves justice. There is more work to be done on that.

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for her statement, which contains some welcome measures, particularly the new independent sexual violence advocate service. I also welcome the fact that the system should be completely separate from the normal political channels. As the Leader of the House is aware, the Committee on Standards, alongside the House of Commons Commission, is currently revising the code of conduct. I note that the behaviour code mentioned in the statement will cover a much larger group of people than just Members and that the Leader of the House is consulting further. Who will investigate the other people who may come under that behaviour code?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a similar point to that of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), which is that it is important that the sanctions are appropriate and fair in respect of the employment contract or contract with members of the public that is held by the person about whom an accusation is being made. Further work is required to ensure that sanctions are appropriate for the alleged perpetrator.

Business of the House

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises something that is very important to all of us: ensuring the safety of those who live in high-rise buildings. If he would like to write to me or talk to me after business questions, I will certainly see whether I can help to raise this matter with that Department.

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

May we have an urgent debate on shale gas fracking planning applications? In my constituency, INEOS, a multinational petrochemical company, has applied to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to avoid local democracy by taking planning decisions out of the local council’s hands and giving it to the national Planning Inspectorate. I would like to ask that Secretary of State how that fits with the Tory manifesto he has just fought on, which promised to “maintain public confidence” in the shale gas industry and

“ uphold our rigorous environmental protections”?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman might wish to raise that specific question in DCLG oral questions on 4 December. As he will know, however, the subject of shale gas exploration has received a huge amount of attention in this place and the regulations are very strong. It is right that the UK economy takes the opportunity to benefit from the transition from high carbon emitting coal, through lower carbon emitting gas, to the renewables future we all want to see.

Business of the House

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I did make a ruling that people who were late for business questions should not be standing.

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Ten seconds.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have told the right hon. Gentleman what the situation is. If a Member is late, that Member should not be standing at business questions. I have the very highest respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but I—[Interruption.] Order. I made a ruling that if Members are not on time—if they are late for business questions—they should not seek to be called. There will be other opportunities for Members to be called. We have a very heavy load of business and somebody has to judge whether the rule has been observed or not. Manifestly, in several cases it has not been. Most people who were late have accepted that they should not contribute today. They may contribute on other occasions or later in the day, but not at business questions. I cannot see what is complicated about it.

Sexual Harassment in Parliament

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that there is already a code of conduct. I am grateful to him for sending me his Committee’s report on this matter over the weekend. I will certainly look at it carefully over the next couple of days.

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Much has been made in the media this weekend of the inability of the Standards Commissioner, and therefore the Standards Committee, to look into many of the issues raised over the past week. In a report debated in March 2012, the Committee tried to give the commissioner a wider scope over these issues, but an amendment tabled by the three major parties’ parliamentary shop stewards and supported by Front Benchers was introduced to block this, and therefore the commissioner was left unable to look into these very important issues. When the Standards Committee re-forms shortly, we will again look at the code of conduct, and I hope that all parties represented here will be a lot more receptive to necessary changes.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. I can assure him that the Commission will meet under the chairmanship of Mr Speaker this afternoon and we will discuss these matters there.

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to support the motion to appoint Kathryn Stone as the next Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. As the former Chair, and now the Chair-in-waiting of the Committee on Standards, I was involved in the appointment process during the initial selection stage and the first round of interviews, when we greatly benefited from the help of an external member of the board, Dr Jane Martin. I would like to record the House’s appreciation of Jane’s wise advice.

We recommended two highly able and appointable candidates for the final stage interviews so the Commission could not go wrong, but I am very pleased that Kathryn Stone has been put forward. I believe that her experience in some very sensitive situations and her personal qualities will form the foundation for a successful and effective term of office as Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. I wish her well in the role, subject to the House’s approving the motion today.

I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to another Kathryn, the outgoing Commissioner, Kathryn Hudson. Kathryn was the first Commissioner to be appointed after the establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. She has, we hope, overseen the last of the legacy cases from the expenses scandal and has helped guide the House into calmer waters on standards.

There have been major changes, such as the introduction of lay members to the Committee on Standards and some major challenges, from inside and outside the House. Kathryn has acted throughout with great integrity and exemplary fairness and thoroughness. She has played a full part in developing the standards system and addressing the culture change needed to embed standards in everything we do and win back the confidence of the public.

I know that Kathryn will be sorry if the Committee on Standards cannot complete its work on the new code of conduct and guide to the rules before she departs in December. The general election has made that timetable very tricky, but whenever the new code and guide emerge for the House’s approval, we will all appreciate the thoughtfulness and dedication that Kathryn put into making it more relevant, more clearly expressed and more user-friendly than previous versions. Perhaps I could take this opportunity to ask that the Committee be re-formed as soon as possible to continue this work. My understanding is that it does not need a Committee of Selection to sit for that to happen. I hope that it can happen quickly.

The standards system has changed for the better in recent years, and no doubt it will continue to evolve as the equality of numbers between lay and elected members on the Committee on Standards makes itself felt. Some outside the House continue to call for the regulation of standards to be taken out of the hands of Parliament altogether; others question the multiplicity of regulators involved in overseeing the conduct of MPs.

Some 20 years after the first Commissioner arrived in the House, it may be time to start thinking about how the system as a whole works, but I am clear that the Commissioner’s independence is something of great value, which has proved its worth. For the system to be effective we need a strong, fair Commissioner, whose integrity is beyond doubt. Kathryn Hudson has fulfilled that brief and I look forward to the new Commissioner continuing the tradition.