Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Lord Newby Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward the Statement. I realise that it has been an intensive work programme for members of the working party and we are grateful to them for the work they have undertaken. However, it is important that the deliberations of the working party are confidential. Obviously there is a great deal of public and press interest in the outcomes, but that is not necessarily the same as the interest in getting things right. They need space to be able to do that. The task that has been set is to ensure that good policies and practice are in place so that problems can be deterred and a proper course of action is available where something goes wrong and deterrence fails. Wide consultation on this is important. I understand that there are still those who are being consulted, which I welcome.

Your Lordships’ House is less well represented on the committee than is the other place—that is a comment not on the quality of the representation but on its number, I hasten to add—with the noble Baroness and the Convenor of the Cross Benches, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, representing us. I hope that that can be taken into account, with wider consultation of your Lordships’ House as the working party progresses.

I reiterate the point—I made it when we discussed this matter previously—that there is a need for this work to proceed without any undue delay, but there is that responsibility to consult, to engage and to ensure the workability of the proposals. We also need to be able to monitor the effectiveness of what the working party comes up with and seeks to implement. I also reiterate how essential it is that an independent and qualified sexual harassment adviser is in place as soon as possible—I think that everybody would agree with that; it does not need to wait for the outcome of the working party.

Someone who makes a complaint needs support in doing so. I noticed the comments in the report about rape and about advice being given, including if somebody chooses not to go to the police. It is worth noting that very few women who are subjected to rape have as a first point of call gone to the police. They need an adviser and support to be able to do that. Harassment in any form is not something that people come across very often. When they do, they need advice and support to be able to report it and the confidence to do so.

I also welcome the independent HR service for staff. I would advise all staff to be in a trade union. I hope that there will be consultation with all the trade unions which represent staff across the parliamentary estate. I appreciate that one trade union and a staff association are on the working party, but many other staff are represented by other trade unions and they should be consulted as well. Can the noble Baroness confirm that HR advice will be available also to those who are employers, ensuring that best practice is available to them?

Can the noble Baroness say something more about “voluntary and mandatory training”? If training is to be voluntary, I am not sure how we can be confident that we have in place people who are trained in the process and understand it. How will such training be delivered? I have heard a reference to e-training. Those of us who have had any responsibility in this House for fire training will know that it is not always as easy as it sounds to ensure that Members undertake appropriate training. How can that be done?

On the code of conduct, I hope that our own commissioner and committee on standards will be consulted on this policy prior to it going forward. The position of Peers is somewhat different from that of MPs. We would want to ensure that we were fully engaged. Can I have an assurance that our commissioner and committee will be consulted, particularly with reference to sanctions?

As a party, we have found that policies cannot be static on an issue such as this; they can always be refined and improved in light of experience. We have sought that confidence by taking the advice of an independent QC with experience in these issues. Will the working party ensure that Parliament does the same?

Getting this right is very important for the confidence of everybody on the Parliamentary Estate and those who wish to work here in the future, as well as for the confidence of the public in the institutions of Parliament. A flawed policy would be the worst possible outcome. There has to be a policy in place that has the confidence of those who may be thinking of making a complaint and those who may be complained against. It has to have the confidence of everybody to ensure that it is workable.

I welcome this interim Statement. We want to support the committee in its further work and engage in further consultation to ensure that we have a policy that is fit for purpose, a policy that will inspire the confidence not just of Parliament but of the public as well.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

I too thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement, but more significantly for the work she is undertaking, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on the committee. I gather that the group has met 11 times so far and not all the meetings have been short. The members of the group have taken on a very significant commitment and we are very grateful for their work. I think they are finding that it is a lot more complicated than it looks, because of the plethora of employers and the different sorts of case that might arise. At one level it is relatively straightforward, although not totally straightforward, dealing with complaints that take place with a single employer, whether it is members of staff or members of an individual political party. The problem that arises here is when you have people involved from different areas—members of House staff and members of parties. This is why we are going to need a twin-track system in place under which the parties will retain disciplinary procedures but there is also an independent route for when a potential case of harassment involves a perpetrator and a victim from different parties. Getting that right is going to be extremely important.

I stress the importance in all of this of changing the culture of Parliament. It is vital, of course, that we put procedures in place to deal with cases that have occurred, but the main benefit of this whole process, we hope, will be to help to change the culture of Parliament. A number of proposals which are being worked up will help to achieve this: the behavioural code will help; the mandatory training will help, although I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that this must not be just e-training. I have tried three times this morning to complete the fire training, only to have the system block me. My response now is to question whether I am going to do it at all. In any event, there is inadequate assurance, in my mind, that people have got the message if they are just doing a cursory bit of e-training.

People need to understand that coming to work here requires a particular standard of behaviour, which at the moment, they clearly do not. The decision, for example, to close the sports and social club sends something of a message about the way we want people to behave, but that is only one of a range of things. My main plea to the noble Baroness as she and her colleagues continue their work into the new year is that we must put as much stress on the culture of the place, so that we have fewer of these incidents to worry about in future, as we do to making sure that the procedures for dealing with them are as good as they can be.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their comments. I shall keep my comments relatively brief because I am not sure how much longer my voice is going to hold out. Certainly, we want wide consultation. It is critical that we have everyone on the parliamentary estate brought into the new procedures, so I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord that there will be further consultation. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and I have been giving a strong voice to your Lordships’ House in the committee. I accept that we are smaller in number than our colleagues in the other place, but of course we want to make sure that Peers are properly represented. There will be much further consultation to be done and quite a lot of this will be done in stages: some things can be done quite quickly but some things will take longer. There will be a lot of opportunity for other people to get involved as and when they can.

I certainly agree with the noble Baroness’s comments about the need for a new independent sexual violence advocate. Certainly, the majority of the evidence we have had from the experts is that many victims do not want to go to the police initially and they really do need support and help. That is absolutely critical and we are mindful of that. We are very keen to get that up and running as quickly as possible.

I want to stress how extremely valuable the staff representation on the group has been. We have had two unions represented—Unite and the NUJ, which is linked to the SNP—as well as MAPSA. They have been excellent in representing staff views and bringing them to us. They have undertaken surveys of members—