Committee on Standards: Cox Report

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Dame Laura Cox rightly said that the bullying and abuse of staff in this place is

“an institutional failure…which has undermined the…authority of the House of Commons”,

and she is right. Anybody who attempts to block these changes at this very late stage, after previous debates, including on the role of lay members, risks not only embedding that perception but further undermining trust in this place. I urge them to consider that.

I fully support the Leader of the House, the changes to the Standing Orders that she has introduced today and her tenacity in doing so. I also fully support the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), in bringing forward the recommendations so swiftly. In debating the report, we have to acknowledge how the House of Commons has ended up in this situation. I believe it is because we are a dysfunctional and unaccountable organisation in terms of the system of management in this place. Who is actually fundamentally responsible for not having ensured that our staff can work in a safe environment? We still do not really know the answer to that question—or do we? I think that Laura Cox was pretty clear that it is the Speaker of the House of Commons, the House of Commons Commission and the chief Clerk of the House of Commons who are responsible, yet we still see very little change in those areas.

To go alongside today’s changes, we need a fuller picture of how the modest changes that we are debating—and they are modest—fit into the fuller picture of reform that Laura Cox called for. We need to see not only the changes that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has been so good in bringing forward to make sure that we have training and a grievance procedure, but that we have a clear plan for modernisation; that we have a democratic, transparent and accountable governance structure in the House of Commons; that we fundamentally review the role of the Speaker, which is clearly not currently working as it should; and that we end this piecemeal approach to reform in this place.

An example of that approach, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) earlier, is the incredibly long-winded way we have had to bring forward changes for something such as baby leave, which is a fundamental right for every person we represent in our constituencies. If they work, they have the ability to take time off when they are pregnant or have young children. Members in this place are not able to do that. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has worked tirelessly to bring the changes forward, but there needs to be clearer and better management structures through which to make such changes in future, and to make sure that this is a modern place of work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

This is a matter of the utmost importance for the reputation and standing of this House. We cannot afford to be inward-looking tonight; we have to be outward-looking. The Cox report was an absolute wake-up call to this Parliament to act. I very much welcome the steps that the Leader of the House took leading up to the introduction of the independent complaints and grievance process this summer, but Cox requires us to go further and to have a system that not only is independent, fair and transparent, but that is seen to be so. The proposals in the Committee on Standards report that we are debating are a step on that journey. The Committee and I do not pretend that they are a full response to Cox, but they are a first step, and they are an indication of earnest intent that this House understands that we can no longer allow the public to believe and perceive that we are marking our own homework and that our decisions and adjudications on our colleagues cannot be trusted.

[Mrs Miller]

Does the hon. Lady agree with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) that the role of lay members has become inherent in so many different professional organisations? Are we saying that we are not a professional organisation that would welcome such input?

[Kate Green]

I very much agree, and I also very much endorse the comments of my friend the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), who rightly pointed to the standing of the lay members who currently belong to the Committee and, indeed, to the full Nolan process we put people through to recruit them to membership of the Committee. I remind the House that the Committee reports to this House. Ultimately, decisions will be taken by this House. We may vote in the Committee on a matter that comes before us—although it is very rare for us to do so—but ultimately the output of our deliberations will be a report to this House, so the elected membership of this House will have a final say.

It is important that the Committee take action now to ensure that the public see we are serious about independence and fairness in the system. That is particularly imperative because under the independent complaints and grievance system that now pertains, the Committee may very well find itself dealing with appeals very shortly. We need to be able to show the public that those appeals will be dealt with appropriately and in a way in which they can have confidence.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I do hope that the House will support the report tonight and give the motion of the Leader of the House the support that it deserves.