Maria Miller
Main Page: Maria Miller (Conservative - Basingstoke)Department Debates - View all Maria Miller's debates with the Leader of the House
(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House welcomes the publication of, and recommendations in, the Dame Laura Cox report on bullying and harassment in Parliament; welcomes the implementation of the recommendation to abandon the Valuing Others and Respect policies; expresses concern about damage caused to the reputation and standing of this House by the lack of progress made on other recommendations on historical allegations and the non-involvement of MPs in Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme cases; and calls on the Leader of the House and the House of Commons Commission to push forward the implementation of all three key recommendations in full without delay.
The Cox report was commissioned a year ago, in July 2018, at what we can only call a low point in this place’s history, our reputation having been rocked by allegations of bullying and harassment. Eight months on from the report being published, just one of the three Cox recommendations has been implemented, despite the House of Commons Commission, the body responsible for the employment of staff, stating that it clearly agreed in full with all three of the recommendations made by Dame Laura Cox.
Nothing is more important than the safety and wellbeing of the people we rely on to run this organisation—parliamentary staff, constituency staff, members of the Metropolitan police and Members themselves—and it is completely unacceptable that eight months on, progress in delivering change is so very slow. We rightly consider other organisations that fail to act when serious problems are identified, particularly when it comes to issues of bullying and harassment, and we run the serious risk of undermining the credibility of the House of Commons in speaking out in the future by not having acted swiftly in the wake of the full Cox report findings. This has to change.
There is much more in the Cox report aside from the recommendations, but those specific recommendations call for the abandoning of the valuing others policy and respect policies; for the amending of the independent complaints and grievance scheme, which according to Alison Stanley’s six-month report published on 12 June is bedding in well through the inclusion of non-recent allegations that predate 2017; and for consideration to be given to the most effective way of ensure that the process for determining complaints of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment by House staff against Members is entirely independent, with MPs playing no part.
It is welcome that one of those recommendations has been put into practice, but that decision was to axe a policy, which is a very straightforward thing to put in place. There has been no change in practice on the other two recommendations. There has been much discussion and consultation—another consultation closed a few days ago—and many plans to set up groups of people to talk to each other and have ideas to bring to the Commission, which could then discuss and think about them and then perhaps do something, but it is unclear when that would be done and who would do it. Let us be clear: there has been no action actively to protect employees in this place.
Not only has the Commission not put in place the changes demanded by Cox eight months ago, but it was made aware that the current policy with regard to non-recent cases could well be unlawful. In its letter of 16 October 2018, the Equality and Human Rights Commission wrote to the House of Commons warning it—warning us—that the House of Commons Commission’s policy of an arbitrary cut-off date of June 2017 for non-recent claims of bullying and harassment could be unlawful because it unjustifiably discriminated against older employees, who are more likely to have a historical complaint, contrary to section 19 of the Equality Act 2010. Despite that, the Commission has failed to act on behalf of Members to bring our policies in line with the law, let alone in line with the recommendations of the Cox report.
Furthermore, the Commission was warned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the House could also be in breach of its public sector equality duty—again, laws that we all passed in this place, not just for ourselves but for those outside. The EHRC has been clear that we could well be in breach of the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act, and that it may actually intervene on the House of Commons and issue a compliance notice. Again, this has not been addressed by the Commission.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
When I sat on the working group that came up with this, there was a strong desire from those of us in that room that historical cases be part of the process. We were assured at the time that that would be in place—or at least starting to be put in place—by now. What the right hon. Lady is saying is incredibly worrying. Does she agree that we should have pressed ahead at the earliest stage so that if there were further challenges we could have addressed and finessed them by now, rather than waiting for an intervention by the ECHR?
Mrs Miller
The hon. Lady brings up a very important point. It goes even further than that. If an organisation is made aware that it could be breaking the law, it does not wait eight months to do something about it; it gets on with it straight away.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who was Leader of the House at the time, did the most remarkable job on behalf of Members, getting in place the very first independent grievance scheme, and we all owe her an incredible debt of thanks for what she has done, but it was not an easy process, and I am sure that she may make a contribution to the debate today to add her perspective on that. We have to make sure that the Commission, which exists only because Members want it to exist—it is there not by right, but because we have decided it should be—is acting in a way that protects us from the inevitable criticism that will come from being found to be potentially unlawful in the way we treat our employees.
Members of the House have given the Women and Equalities Committee a responsibility to scrutinise the Government’s policy on equality, but I do not think that it is just the Government who need to be scrutinised at the moment, and we are actively keeping an eye on what is going on in the House of Commons as well. Working with my Committee colleagues, I have established an inquiry into the gender-sensitive Parliament, and we will be looking closely at the procedures that this place is using to ensure that it is actively taking on not just the key recommendations in the Cox report, but the spirit of that report as well.
The way in which the House of Commons Commission is dealing with this matter is unacceptable, and, I believe, risks bringing us all into disrepute if change does not happen soon. However, I also believe that the lack of action on Cox is symptomatic of much wider management dysfunctionality in this place, and I want to raise a couple of issues that are directly related to that lack of action.
The fact that the Leader of the House will be responding to the debate goes to the heart of the problem. The Government do not run the House of Commons; Members do, via the House of Commons Commission, which is chaired by the Speaker. So why is a Minister responding to the debate? I say this with the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is an extremely capable individual, but he is not responsible for the matter that I have raised today. While I welcome his contribution, he cannot answer directly the questions that I am asking. At the end of my speech, I shall set him some tasks that he might want to undertake were he to wish to assist Members in resolving this issue.
Members established the House of Commons Commission in 1978 to administer, on our behalf, the way in which this place is run. Unlike almost all other Committees of the House, it has no elected members, and because it is chaired by the Speaker—whose impartiality is key to our debates—it is difficult to achieve clear accountability. Quite rightly, the Speaker does not feel that it is appropriate either to appear before the House to answer questions, or, as I found recently, to appear before a Select Committee. I fully understand the rationale for that, but it does leave us with an accountability deficit in knowing why these delays have been so lengthy.
However, I believe that the problem goes deeper than that. Responding to an urgent question on 16 October, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire said:
“In this place, we are all aware that a number of these issues are ‘matters for the House’. That is quite a tricky concept, because nowhere in the workplace are things simply a matter for all those who are involved in that workplace.”—[Official Report, 16 October 2018; Vol. 647, c. 535.]
That, I would assert, is why the House of Commons Commission was set up. It would be impossible for each and every one of the 650 Members of the House to actively manage it. By definition, we must have a body that is nominated by us to do these things on our behalf, but when there is no clear accountability or report-back mechanism other than the regular questions that are asked, there is no other proactive way of engaging in debate.
Let me now refer to a matter to which I have referred in the House before. I think that it, too, is at the heart of some of the dysfunctionality surrounding management in this place. I speak as someone who spent 20 years in business before coming to this place. It has always struck me that this place has very opaque management systems, which—for me, at any rate—have just reached breaking point because of the lack of progress in delivering on the Cox report after eight months. I think that that is reflected in one of the key findings in the report. I shall quote verbatim from page 154. This is not my interpretation of what Dame Laura has said; it is what she has said:
“I have…referred throughout this report to systemic or institutional failings and to a collective ethos in the House that has, over the years, enabled the underlying culture to develop and to persist. Within this culture, there are a number of individuals who are regarded as bearing some personal responsibility for the criticisms made, and whose continued presence is viewed as unlikely to facilitate the necessary changes, but whom it would…be wrong for me to name, having regard to the terms of reference for this inquiry…some individuals will want to think very carefully about whether they are the right people to press the reset button and to do what is required to deliver that change in the best interests of the House, having regard both to its reputation and its role as an employer of those who are rightly regarded as its most important resource.”
Unless we choose to change not only the structures but the management of the House and the people in charge of its management, we face the prospect of continued inertia on this and other reforms that are long overdue.
It was difficult for me to quote Dame Laura’s words, because they are critical of individuals, but we cannot put our head in the sand continually, eight months after the report’s publication. We must stand up and take what I believe to be long overdue decisions. We need the implementation of the report to be completed before the end of the summer recess, in about 10 weeks’ time. In the case of any other business, we would expect, after 10 weeks, the completion of a measure to bring people within the law and to create a process for analysing cases that came forward.
Can the Leader of the House assist Members by putting a motion on the Order Paper to that effect? There is no reason why the House should not debate the issue, and agree—I would hope—that the Cox report should be implemented in full within a reasonable period. I suggest that we issue a request to the House of Commons Commission to deliver that, or else to explain why it has not done so.
It is clear that we also need to consider the modernisation of the Commission itself. I think that what has happened recently requires us to consider the way in which it might be run on our behalf in the future. Such a modernisation should include an elected Chair who would be directly responsible to Members, and could speak here on all Commission matters. There should be a transparent agenda for the modernisation of the management of the House and the way in which business is conducted. The current piecemeal approach is not working in practice. Members need to know how wider change is being implemented, and to know that it is not just being talked about.
This needs to be debated by Members. Would the Leader of the House also consider tabling a motion proposing that we begin to discuss the modernisation of the House of Commons Commission, so that we could take account of Members’ views and, perhaps, Select Committees could follow them up?
Thirdly, these problems of implementation point to another area of reform. We as a group of people need to take stock of how we shape the role of the individual who runs the business of this place: the Speaker. It is we who have determined that the Speaker is responsible for not only the important procedure and running of the business in this Chamber and elsewhere, but the entire running of the House of Commons, because as chair of the Commission it is the Speaker who is ultimately responsible for the implementation of Cox, the thousands of staff employed here and the complexities of running an organisation of this incredible scale. I would assert that the two roles are individually challenging; having one person doing them increases the risk of the Speaker becoming involved in matters that are not compatible with the important independent nature of the Speaker’s jobs. Any of us who have been involved in employing staff knows that can be one of the most controversial issues we can get involved with; why would we want the Speaker to be involved in something that can be so difficult and controversial?
Will the Leader of the House consider putting forward a motion for debate on the Floor of the House on the role of the Speaker so that the views of Members can be established, and then Select Committees can, if appropriate, take those views forward? If that is not appropriate, perhaps the Leader of the House can advise me on what are the appropriate ways for Members to review and discuss those issues.
It is vital that we find a way forward on all three of the issues I have outlined, because they are all connected to the problems we are experiencing in implementing Cox. But even above that, they are determining how people outside view this place. We must be an exemplar in management, not a laggard. There can be no special pleading for working practices in this place and the fact that they have not changed to reflect the realities of a modern 21st-century Parliament.
The House of Commons is central to our democracy. As custodians of this place we have a clear and unquestionable responsibility to safeguard the effectiveness of the House of Commons, to ensure it is respected and to root out anything that could serve to undermine its standing in the public eye. It can never be an option to seal Parliament in aspic because, as a democratic institution, we have to reflect the country we seek to serve. There is an important place for tradition to root our procedures in precedent, and any change has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary, but we should leave this place better than we found it—more relevant, not less, to those we seek to represent here, our constituents.
There is no lack of good will to change, and the staff of the House of Commons are clearly dedicated to the future of this place, as came through strongly in the Cox report and the research Dame Laura did, but too often that enthusiasm and dedication to change is not forthcoming in practice because of a lack of clear responsibility and accountability. The lack of swift action on the Cox recommendations reflects deep-seated problems with the way the House of Commons is run, and colleagues, it is down to us to change that—no one else.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) have secured this debate, and I am proud that this is my first speech back on the Back Benches. Hopefully, I have the freedom to shed a little light on some of those dark spaces.
Before I do that, I want to agree with the hon. Lady. I, too, love this Parliament. I feel incredibly optimistic that, between all of us, we will make this change. Right now, we are still in a difficult place, and I will go through some of that before setting out some recommendations of my own.
I pay tribute to the officials in the office of the Leader of the House and to all the members of House staff who worked so hard to get the independent complaints procedure in place. If anyone is at fault for the lack of progress, it is definitely not them.
As I said, the picture is very complicated. This all began back in November 2017, when the appalling allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment hit Parliament. Having already hit Hollywood, the allegations soon came to Westminster. So the independent complaints and grievance procedure was established and voted on by this House in July 2018. It was a cross-party agreement, with many colleagues from across the House working hard together to achieve something that is different and ground-breaking.
Then of course we had the Cox report, which was specifically on the bullying of House staff by Members of Parliament. That reported in October 2018, after the independent complaints procedure had already been set up. Subsequent to that, we now have the inquiry by Gemma White, QC, into the bullying of MPs’ staff by MPs, and vice versa, which is due to report later this month. Finally, we have the inquiry by Naomi Ellenbogen, QC, into the bullying and harassment of peers’ staff by peers, and vice versa, which will report later this year. A number of complicated inquiries are going on, and I can well understand people saying, “It is all too complicated. I can’t get my way through it.” Nevertheless, it is all headed in the right direction; people are genuinely being given the opportunity to speak out and have their say, which is so vital.
The independent complaints procedure was set up following the July 2018 motion that was agreed by this House, and Alison Stanley, the independent reviewer of the complaints procedure, has just finished her review of the first six months of the independent complaints and grievance scheme. I wish to quote one statement in her report, as it gives us hope:
“both the Behaviour Code and the policies represent in some aspects leading edge practice, such as the unequivocal language used in the Behaviour Code. From my own experience of introducing change across diverse organisations, the fact that the Scheme has now been largely introduced across the Parliamentary Community is an achievement and, from survey results, has been seen as a positive sign of a change in the culture of the Parliamentary Community by some.”
That is on the good side, but of course there is another side. Throughout my time as Leader of the House, both officially, through the working group, and unofficially, as a private Member of Parliament, I have heard some truly terrible stories. These were stories of victims being quietly moved on, rather than the bully being challenged in any way; of young women and, in some cases, young men being taken advantage of, on and off the estate; of complaints left entirely unaddressed by those who are supposed to be addressing them; and of mental health issues suffered by those who have been subjected to bullying, day in, day out, for long periods, by senior people who should be ashamed of themselves.
Alison Stanley’s report on the complaints procedure makes for difficult reading. The start of the culture change to embed the need to treat everyone with dignity and respect has been far too slow and it has not been well enough resourced. That is the conclusion of her report. She talks specifically about the speed of investigations being too slow, and speed is crucial both for the complainant and for the respondent. Where someone is accused of something and they then have to wait for several months not knowing whether it is going to be taken up, it can, in some ways, be as difficult as the situation is for the complainant, who has plucked up the courage to come forward and just does not seem to be making any progress. Issues associated with confidentiality were raised. Unfortunately, as we live under the spotlight in this place, there are accusations made in the press which mean that people who want to come forward with a complaint do not really know whether their complaint would also then find its way into the press. That gives the complainants serious concern about being re-victimised. We have not yet managed to achieve enough confidence in that aspect.
We also face issues associated with the qualifications and processes for investigations—for example, on the understanding of the investigator as to whether the case deserves investigation or not. Alison Stanley makes some very strong recommendations on this, which will go a long way to also addressing concerns about historical allegations. As Leader of the House of Commons, I was concerned that when we look at day-to-day allegations of issues that are ongoing now we find that they are in some cases more easily understood than something that happened eight or 10 years ago, where most of those involved at the time might no longer be around. The complexity can be much greater, although not necessarily so. So the quality and experience of the investigators are vital.
Mrs Miller
It is incredibly useful for the House to have my right hon. Friend talk about her experience in this debate. She mentioned the assertion in the Stanley report that the roll-out of the grievance procedure had been under-resourced. With reference to what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) said, it is difficult for us to know who is responsible for that, but we need to know, because we Members need to ensure that that changes in future.
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend is exactly right. One thing that I found fascinating about the independent review was to see somebody with real experience, as Alison Stanley has, of implementing these kinds of change processes, because one could really see where the rubber hits the road. It is all very well all of us sitting and standing here making representations as to how we want change to happen, but it has to be workable on the ground. There have to be proper resources and service-level agreements, so that people turn investigations around fast enough for them to be meaningful. My right hon. Friend is exactly right that resourcing is absolutely key.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I apologise for being just two minutes late for the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). However, I enjoyed listening to the bulk of her contribution. Maybe it was because I arrived a bit late, but at times I felt that she was saying that no action had been taken on Cox. I agree with her that belated action has been taken on many aspects, but some progress is being made, although perhaps not as swiftly as any of us would like. Part of the reason that I referred to the Valuing Everyone course was that it is an example of action that is being taken. As I said in my intervention, all Members of Parliament should be required to go on that course. I suspect that that would not be popular among Members, many of whom will feel that they know perfectly well how to value others, but if we want to get to the bottom of this cultural change in practice, we should require each and every single Member of Parliament to attend the course.
Mrs Miller
This debate is very tightly drawn on the Cox report. There were only three recommendations from that report, two of which have not been put into practice, particularly the ability to look at non-recent cases—some people call them historical, but they do not feel very historical to me—as well as the implementation of an independent system of reviewing cases. I have been on the Valuing Everyone course and, although it is very important, attending it was not actually one of the three recommendations that I cited in today’s motion.
Tom Brake
I will come to those recommendations, but if the purpose of what we are doing is to ensure that there are no future complaints about bullying and harassment, that course is part of the answer. Having attended the course yesterday, it is very clear that bullying and harassment is going on now, and that there are members of staff in particular who do not yet feel able to have that behaviour addressed and do not feel confident in speaking out openly. I would therefore suggest that the more Members who go on this course and the quicker that happens, the better.
Tom Brake
I do not want to get diverted on to fire safety, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is a matter that we discuss at the House of Commons Commission. Having been on the fire safety course, I am very much in favour of naming and shaming the other 600 Members of Parliament—that is probably the number at this point in time—who have not been on it. I recommend that people attend that course because we are in a position of responsibility towards our staff. Therefore, if we have not been on the fire safety training course, we are not in a position to help them should an incident occur. But I need to focus, rightly, on the three critical points that came out of the Cox report.
The first recommendation is the termination of the Valuing Others and Respect policies. I hope that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke would agree that that has been acted on. The second recommendation is access to the independent complaints procedure for historical complaints. I agree that that has not progressed particularly quickly. However, the right hon. Lady may or may not be aware that the consultation on that closed on 14 June, and the Commission expects to consider its outcome on 24 June. We hope that the Leader of the House, who is very much new in his role but who I know will take these things very seriously, will ensure that any recommended proposal is brought before the House before the summer. I agree that it is not as quickly as we wanted—
Mrs Miller
I hope the House can forgive me for intervening again on the right hon. Gentleman, but he is actually the person who is most likely to be able to give us answers to questions because, unlike the Leader of the House, he is our representative on the Commission. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the importance of making progress on the second recommendation. May I gently remind him that not making progress is potentially unlawful? Surely the Commission does not need a consultation; it should simply be telling us what legal advice it has sought following the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s letter saying that it could be unlawful to block these non-recent cases. Might we actually be falling foul of our own law?
Tom Brake
I thank the right hon. Lady for that intervention. She will be aware that there has been legal advice of a different nature about what action we can take. However, I agree that we need to take action. I very much hope that the meeting on 24 June is the point at which a very clear way forward will be taken and that the House will then act on that before the summer recess. I do not want to get too political, but frankly we are not doing very much else in terms of the parliamentary timetable, so we have lots of opportunities to get the matter resolved, and I hope that we will do that before the summer recess.
The third point relates to an independent process for determining complaints of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment brought by House staff against Members of Parliament. I agree that we have not acted quickly enough. There were some quite engaged discussions, if not to say arguments, at the Commission about how to take it forward. I think that a satisfactory way forward has been determined: a staff team are going to look at it. We hope that we will be in a position to consider the output from that and choose a preferred option on which there will be a consultation in the autumn.
Again, I agree with the right hon. Lady that not enough action has been taken so far. However, there are things that are in train, including, as the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), mentioned, the Alison Stanley report that is flagging up actions that we should be taking. In terms of a timetable, I agree with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke that we need an action plan with precise dates on which the Commission can then be held to account on. The Commission is going to agree an action plan in response to the Alison Stanley report by 24 June. There are timescales available for some of the things that the right hon. Lady is worried about, and rightly so. Yes, the House has not moved as quickly as it should, but the Commission is taking action. It has agreed at least some timescales to which we are going to report.
A number of Members have rightly flagged up some concerns about the way that the Commission operates. We have heard that it is perhaps not as efficient, accountable, open or transparent as it should be, that it could come to conclusions more quickly, and so on. I have already mentioned to the Leader of the House the initiative suggested by the lay people, Jane McCall and Rima Makarem. When the previous Leader of the House was still in post, there was the idea that the Commission should collectively sit down and work out whether we are working as efficiently and effectively as we could be—how we could streamline the Commission’s processes and look again at the way it operates to ensure that it is meeting more frequently; that there is more clarity about the way that the decisions are taken; and that it becomes—much more businesslike in the way that it operates. That is certainly what I would like to see—
I am sure that the Leader of the House would want to support that initiative. I think there is a collective desire—
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Everyone is entitled to work free from harassment and abuse in an environment that promotes dignity and respect, yet sexual harassment and violence against women in politics is a long-standing phenomenon in the UK and in many other countries. I am proud to chair the all-party group on women in Parliament, the women’s caucus that works to encourage more women to come into political life and to support one another when they do. In the past couple of years, there have been a number of inquiries into the nature and extent of sexual harassment in Westminster, and the inquiry by Dame Laura Cox was pivotal in shining a light on the scale of sexual harassment, intimidation and bullying in Parliament.
The women’s caucus held a meeting in February with Dame Laura, and we were delighted that the then Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), was able to attend and reaffirm the commitment of the House to driving forward meaningful change in this area. We welcomed, and continue to welcome, the lead that the House has taken in ensuring ongoing reform and making Parliament a place where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. While the allegations of bullying and harassment in Parliament shocked all of us we were glad to see progress, with the new complaints and grievance policy now up and running. However, while there were welcome changes, such as the appointment of a new director of HR and a cultural transformation director, along with some interim changes on the Committee on Standards, Dame Laura conveyed to the group issues that have been raised with her by members of staff in both the Lords and the Commons about the implementation of her report. As chair of the all-party group, I would like to set out some of her concerns, bearing in mind that it is nine months since the publication of her report.
There were particular concerns about transparency and the rate of progress in implementing the recommendations. Dame Laura has received requests for amendments to the new independent complaints and grievance scheme to enable members of staff to bring complaints relating to historical allegations. Members of staff often find it difficult to make such complaints. There have also been suggestions to make sure that the processes for determining complaints brought by members of staff against MPs will be entirely independent and that MPs will play no part in those processes. I urge the new Leader of the House to look at those two specific suggestions and make sure that progress is made on those issues.
Dame Laura expressed concern about her recommendations becoming bogged down in process through, for example, the setting up of working groups and advisory panels. The feedback that she received from staff was that they were concerned about knowing who is responsible for what, and the dates by which action should be taken. The problem of becoming bogged down in the process and detail, rather than seeing the big picture, was holding back progress.
We need better communication both to members of staff and to members of the public on the parliamentary website about what has been done and by whom. It was good that the House of Commons Commission published a statement on the way forward last week, but much more regular communication is needed for transparency. The biggest concern expressed to Dame Laura by staff was that some MPs and senior management—and, indeed, some very senior MPs—are prevaricating and delaying. It has even been suggested that that is with the aim of attempting to water down the recommendations. Delay can only exacerbate the lack of trust and confidence of members of staff that there will be fundamental change and that recommendations will be carried out. Any delays can only worsen the level of public confidence in the House’s ability to correct past errors and implement fundamental change. As I have said, these accusations were passed on to Dame Laura by members of staff.
We know from research by the Fawcett Society that the level of public concern about the nature and extent of allegations is very high, with 73% of both men and women believing that there needs to be change in how unwanted sexual harassment is dealt with in politics. If there are delays, they will only continue to undermine the legitimacy and authority of our own Parliament. There must be greater transparency and greater accountability. These recommendations are important, and progress needs to be seen.
I have a couple of other points to make. Having worked in politics for a decade both in Europe and then here, I see how it is very stressful. We in this place face very difficult decisions. We are living at a time of great change, with great challenges. We are living in the middle of an industrial revolution—the digital revolution—with huge demographic changes putting great pressure on our public services. We see the generational challenge of addressing climate change, which we must get on top of now, or the next generation will not have a planet as we know it for the future. On top of that, we in this place of course face the overlaying challenge of resolving Brexit.
It is therefore not surprising that politicians are under great stress and can be snappy. However, there is a difference between being stressed and snappy and continual harassment of staff, which is the allegation laid in front of us. There is work we could do to alleviate the level of stress in this place. I have talked about the lack of predictability of the parliamentary day, and other Parliaments have managed to find ways to resolve that, which does destress the working environment. I was very pleased to take part in the gender-sensitive Parliament audit last year, which made many recommendations about how to make this Parliament a more welcoming and sensitive place for Members, staff and those who work here, especially those with families or other caring responsibilities. I am very pleased to be on the Sub-Committee of the Women and Equalities Committee that is looking at implementing those recommendations.
I really feel strongly that I do not want to leave the impression that women are not wanted in this place. There are more women on these Benches in Parliament than ever before. Women make a huge difference in their constituencies, and they make a huge difference in Westminster. We need more of them here, and we must support them. In the news today has been the need to make sure we are supporting women, especially when they are expecting a baby or when they have a baby. No woman should have to choose between having a family and standing for political office, and I am very sorry to hear the concerns of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy).
However, I have been in touch today with a number of women MPs who have recently had a baby or are expecting a baby very soon, and some have commented on the great support they are being given by their colleagues, constituents and staff. Indeed, the Minister with responsibility for the constitution, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who is currently on maternity leave, has commented that proxy voting is a good start. She has been in touch digitally today on these matters to remind us, at the same time as she is breastfeeding, that it is National Breastfeeding Week. We are introducing measures to make sure that our women and our men can have such flexibility. Again, I thank the former Leader of the House for her efforts in introducing proxy voting.
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend is making a really important point. It is really important that the message that goes out from this place is that women should be MPs. Having children should not be an impediment to having a career in Parliament. My youngest was three when I joined—Madam Deputy Speaker, you have probably got a better story than that. Even back then, in 2005, it was very possible to do that. I would want to offer every support to any Member who felt that it was difficult.
Vicky Ford
I thank my right hon. Friend for that valuable point. I say again that there are more women in this place than ever before and they make a hugely valuable contribution. There are many women in this place who have just become mums or are soon to become mums—on that point, I note my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch), most fondly. We must make sure that mums and dads have the flexibility to take parental leave and to be supported during the time when they are expecting a baby. Every constituency in this country is different and every Member of Parliament represents their constituency in a different way. We need to make sure that each MP has the flexibility to make sure that their constituents continue to be represented when they are taking parental leave.
I want to make one final point about harassment. Harassment of politicians and our staff does not just happen in the physical world. It happens increasingly online, and there has been exponential growth in that online abuse. Action must be taken to stop the online harassment of women involved in politics—and it is women who are harassed more.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this important debate. I also thank other parliamentary colleagues for contributing to what has been an excellent debate that has given us the opportunity to kick around some issues that now go back almost two years.
The major theme is that there seems to be some slowness in execution or a paucity of action around some of the conclusions and recommendations of Dame Laura Cox’s report. I do not take great exception to that, because the report was produced in October and its conclusions were accepted in a debate in November, and it is now only June of the following year, which is not particularly unusual. I am pretty used to the glacial pace that this House operates under and to the speed at which things get done, so I do not find it at all unreasonable that we have waited some seven or eight months to get to this stage.
I want to go through conclusions one by one to see what progress we have made. As everybody has said, Dame Laura made only the three recommendations. I think we have established that the first has been dealt with, which was to abandon the Valuing Others and Respect policies. The second recommendation was, of course, that the independent complaints and grievance scheme should be amended to ensure that historical cases can be heard, and we have heard a few contributions, most notably from the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who represents the House of Commons Commission, that progress is being made on that.
I declare an interest in that I have been involved in the ICGS since its inception, and I have just recently been appointed to the House of Commons Commission—an august body on which I look forward to serving. The members of the ICGS group take things seriously when we are presented with them, and it was important that the second recommendation was considered with full intent, which is what we have done. I have seen the shadow Leader of the House shaking her head about all that, and we had a series of meetings just to see how to respond. We said that we would move forward, so we had a consultation, and we are trying to ensure that we move forward and that the recommendations on that specific point are accepted by the House.
The matter will be debated further at a forthcoming meeting of the House of Commons Commission, which will be my first, and I hope that there will be progress. I therefore do not see any big issues with the second recommendation, but if I am missing something, I am more than happy for the right hon. Member for Basingstoke to intervene and tell me where the drawbacks are and where something is being lost.
The third recommendation is that the process for determining complaints should be independent and free from any involvement from Members of Parliament and, again, I have seen progress there. There is a complicated issue relating to how we deal with historical cases, and there were delicate negotiations with the Committee on Standards as to how things would be progressed. I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who chairs the Committee, is not here, because I am pretty certain that she would reiterate that it is important to get things right when making really important decisions about how we operate. I know that there were real issues with how to do that, and that legality and other things had to be considered. I think we are making steady progress, and there is a view that independence will be created—no one in this House would deny that.
I see progress in all these things. It might not be fast enough for the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and other Members, but I am ticking all these recommendations. I am ticking the top recommendation, with two thirds of a tick for the other ones. I understand there is a real desire to get things going, but we are not doing all that bad.
Mrs Miller
Would the hon. Gentleman be satisfied if employers in his constituency reacted so glacially, to use his term, to important recommendations about the safety of his constituents? I am not sure he would. I also think he needs to reflect on whether the two-thirds ticks he is giving those two elements actually make any difference to staff in this place. It might make a difference to him and to members of the Commission but, if we were to ask staff, they will not have noticed a blind bit of difference.
Pete Wishart
The right hon. Lady makes an important point, but what is more important to me when it comes to these things is that they are done right for the constituents I represent, for the staff I employ in this House and for my obligations and responsibilities as a Member of Parliament.
It is important that we get this right, which is why some of the conversations and negotiations that are required have to be played out so we get to the right solution, and I believe we are getting there. We owe it to the House to get to the right place. We have to make progress, and we have to deal with this.
I remember when all this started. There was a huge flurry of activity, with party leaders getting together under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. There was an urgency about it. Something had to be done.
The energy seems to have been sucked out of that initiative, and I do not know why. The Chamber is a bit busier now but, at its busiest, I counted only 15 Members here to discuss these important issues. At one point during the debate we were down to seven Back-Bench colleagues listening to these important proceedings.
I suggest that somehow we are not getting the message out to other colleagues, and I am grateful to everyone who has been here. The contributions have been sincere and heartfelt, but we are not exciting the House with these proposals. We have to do more to ensure that Members are engaged with this process, because it is about us. It is about our behaviour and how we respond to staff and to the parliamentary community.
Pete Wishart
As the right hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position, my proposals relate to the Cox recommendations. Can we please do more to look at how we do business in the House, how this place feels and how it looks to people who come into the House? For goodness’ sake, we still have a place down the corridor called the Lords. The forelock tugging and cap doffing goes on, and there are still people called Lords and Ladies. What does that say to the people who come to this place from throughout the country? That somehow these are our betters—these are people who are titled, and they run the country.
Mrs Miller
Earlier in his remarks, the hon. Gentleman alluded to the fact that he is a member of the House of Commons Commission. It will be noticeable to people listening to the debate that the two individuals who are members of the Commission are far more positive about the progress that has been made on Cox than the rest of us are. Will the hon. Gentleman remind me and other Members who put him in his position on the House of Commons Commission? It would be helpful for the House to be aware of that.
Pete Wishart
Ah, that is a very good point, and I will answer it fully and comprehensively. I do not know who said it, but of course people should be elected to the House of Commons Commission, and that is what we should do for everybody in the management of the House.
I would go further than that, because a key feature of the ICGS was the fact that staff members and trade union representatives were involved—representatives of the general staff of the House—and they did two important things. First, they gave a voice to the members of staff who work in all parts of the House. They made probably the most useful and positive contributions throughout that whole experience. Secondly, they had a restraining effect on the Members of Parliament who served on the group. We were somehow better behaved because members of staff were part of the group, and it did not feel like a bunch of MPs getting together and shouting at each other in the most appalling and useless way.
I make this appeal: as well as reforming the Commission to include elections for Members of Parliament, we should also have staff members on it. The Commission is responsible for the management of the House, and therefore it should include people from the whole House community. As I look around the House, I do not see a great deal of agreement on that point, but I hope that Members of Parliament might actually give the idea some thought. Let us run the House in a way that represents the people who work in this place. I think that is a reasonable suggestion.
We will have a debate about the future of the Commission, and I look forward to being part of it. I say to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke that, unfortunately, I cannot be held responsible for any earlier decisions—I have not been to a meeting yet. I am looking forward to going to my first one on 24 June. She is looking at me as if I were responsible for some of the decisions that have been made, but I cannot claim that responsibility yet. If she wants to come back in a few months’ time, she can blame me for all the terrible things that are going on in the Commission if we have not managed to get some of the reforms through.
I am all for reforming the House of Commons Commission. It would be good to have a positive debate about the type of management structure that we want in this House. Perhaps it would be an idea to include the Backbench Business Committee in this, as it seems to be getting all the business just now. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) might as well be the Leader of the House rather than the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), given that he practically determines and dictates everything that is going on, including this debate. Perhaps it would be useful to encourage him to hold a debate on the House of Commons Commission. We would be able to hear the range of opinions about how we can make this House a more effective, democratic and useful type of organisation. One thing that we have to conclude is that this organisation has issues and difficulties. Is the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire the man to fix them? Probably not. We need everybody in the House to be involved and engaged in that debate, and I hope that we have it.
Finally, there is the ownership issue. This is a very important issue, and it might get to the heart of some of the frustrations and difficulties that Members have expressed throughout the course of this debate. It is about who owns what when it comes to the plethora of initiatives—I say plethora because, in my view, we have too many things going on. I have been a member of the ICGS group, so I am familiar with that work and I know what we are doing in that regard. I also have a good sense about the direction that we should take and the type of service that we should deliver. Obviously I know Dame Laura’s report, because I have read it and attended these debates on it, but then there is also Gemma White’s review. Another review is also going on in the House of Lords. We have four initiatives, which seem to be happening simultaneously with different terms of reference. Although most of them seem to be working quite collegially with each other, we are creating confusion and difficulties. We need to look at how we can bring these initiatives together under one work stream, which will make it sensible not just for Members of Parliament but for people across the House.
If there is something that we can take away from today, it is how we can start to combine these initiatives. Then we must decide who owns this. It looks as though it will be the Commission—I accept my responsibilities and obligations when it comes to that—but perhaps the Commission is not the best place to look at the ownership of all this. This is just a thought—it is not a thought-out suggestion or proposal—but perhaps we should be looking at some sort of Select Committee, some sort of new elected authority, that would have ownership over these initiatives and be charged by the House to look specifically at these issues. I think this is important enough for us to do that. I know that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, but perhaps we need something beyond that, which could possibly include our friends from that high and mighty place to which we always have to pay due deference—that is if they deign to be part of something with us humble directly elected Members. I put that forward as a suggestion. I will think more about it and see whether I can come back with a firmed-up proposal.
I say to colleagues throughout the House that they should not despair. We have come a long way. We need to do more to reactivate interest from colleagues across the House, and the mandatory training will help to do that once people are asked to do something that is perhaps part of a more general package. Steady progress is being made. I do not share the great sense of disappointment that the right hon. Lady and others have expressed about whether we are getting there, because I am confident that we are.
It has been an absolute pleasure, privilege and humbling experience to have been involved in the conversations and debates on this issue. [Interruption.] I see that the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) has returned to the Chamber; I did pay tribute to her for her leadership in all this. I think we all bear the scars of the past year and a half when it comes to these matters, but it has been an excellent experience to work with others across the House, including the shadow Leader of the House. We are getting there. I would appeal for just a little bit more patience, because the most important thing is that we get it right.
Mrs Miller
The motion is crystal clear. It says we have to push forward the implementation of all three recommendations in the Cox report “without delay”— perhaps I should have used the word “forthwith”, which is a bit more parliamentary. Not one hon. Member who is not a member of the House of Commons Commission has spoken against this motion. That sends a loud message to the House of Commons Commission, including those right hon. and hon. Members here today, that they must bring forward policies and procedures to ensure that non-recent allegations are dealt with now and that independent processes, as described by Cox, are put in place. I have recommended that there should be motions on the Order Paper to ensure that progress is made. If others do not table them, I will seek support from the Backbench Business Committee to do so, because this is important. We cannot continually push things into the long grass because it is convenient for others to do so. We have to act.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the publication of, and recommendations in, the Dame Laura Cox report on bullying and harassment in Parliament; welcomes the implementation of the recommendation to abandon the Valuing Others and Respect policies; expresses concern about damage caused to the reputation and standing of this House by the lack of progress made on other recommendations on historical allegations and the non-involvement of MPs in Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme cases; and calls on the Leader of the House and the House of Commons Commission to push forward the implementation of all three key recommendations in full without delay.