Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts]

(Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC): As one of the members of the cross-party working group and the leader of Plaid Cymru’s Westminster team, I wish to congratulate everyone involved in this timely, long-drawn-out and, at times, demanding task.

It is worth stating some of the obvious facts that have brought us here. This policy has come about following co-operation between politicians representing all the parties in the House and representatives of staff employed here and trade unions. In particular, I commend the many witnesses who spoke to us and the specialist adviser on sexual harassment, Dr Helen Mott, as well as the Leader of the House for her able and patient work in chairing the working group—and that from the Opposition Benches!

The policy before us today represents a critical step in transforming Westminster into a 21st-century workplace. Again, let us take a moment to state the obvious and consider how ineffective we would be without the staff, including office staff, who hold things together, balance constantly conflicting demands and enable us to present composed and competent faces in our public lives. The flip side is that this is a highly pressurised, tiring and emotional environment, and there is potentially always a toxic mix of power, ambition and vulnerability, much of which is played out behind closed doors.

The de-sexualisation of this and any workplace is simply a matter of equality, and just as with the line between assertiveness and bullying, much of our discussion is around our fear of where we draw the line. The unique nature of the terms and conditions for MPs’ staff, who, as we have heard, are employed directly by MPs, has meant that until now their last resort for complaint was either their MP or their MP’s party, which is why the independent nature of the complaints and grievance policy is so significant. Political parties must, of course, ensure that their own grievance policies are fair and without prejudice, but the question of whose interests are best served will always remain in those routes.

None the less, as is obvious from these discussions, some of which have been quite sophisticated, work still needs to be done over and above today’s recommendations. We need urgently to address the question of how to include visitors to constituency offices, and there is also the important question of how to decide when and where Members, their staff and all those to whom this is applied are engaged in parliamentary duties, be that here in Westminster, in our constituencies or on visits here and abroad. We need clarity on that to ensure fairness.

This will be a quasi-judicial process weighing up the pros and cons and the views of two people necessarily in conflict. There has been some discussion about the role of the Standards Committee, and the report anticipates changes, including to the voting arrangements on the Committee. We are doing our best to merge House structures with cultural change, which will be challenging, but we have struck the best balance we can and will be moving ahead with the arrangements.

I urge that there be a high-profile campaign to inform staff about the new human resources facility—we know it exists, since we have talked about it, but we need to remind people as and when they need it—and about the independent complaints policy and the other working group proposals, with a particular emphasis on our staff in constituency offices, who are not necessarily part of the discussions and talking groups we have here. That process of informing new staff should continue into the future; it should not be a one-off event. Making effective human resources facilities available to Members’ staff will address problems that may be minor or mundane, but will also prevent those problems from escalating.

There has been a fair amount of discussion about training today, and I think it important to depersonalise that issue. There has been a rather personal, individualistic approach to training, but it is not a threat to individuals; it is a way in which we, corporately—as an entire body—can bring about change. This is about corporate leadership. What I particularly commend in the report is the ability of politicians to rein in that inclination to feel concern as individuals: the inclination to over-emphasise the potential for political motivation in complaints. It has maintained the balance between supporting complainants and resisting an over-emphasis on malicious and vexatious complaints.

The measure of the success of these initiatives will be a change from a dated culture of deference and outmoded power structures to a culture of respect among equals working together in our many parliamentary workplaces, wherever they may be. Their future success will require rigorous implementation and rigorous monitoring. Just as, on a number of occasions, the contribution of staff and union representatives served as the glue that held the working group together, it is essential for staff and the representatives of all their unions to be involved in the future monitoring. These policies are not complete—they will evolve in practice and in review—but I am confident that they are the catalysts for change.