Bullying and Harassment of MPs’ Parliamentary Staff

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I join other hon. Members in welcoming Gemma White’s report. The Leader of the House is right that we should never fail to condemn the sort of bullying or harassing behaviour that is so carefully set out in the report. Everything needs to be done to ensure that we do not have a culture that would in any way perpetuate that. It is also right to recognise that, as Gemma White has clearly said, the severe criticisms are levelled at a minority of hon. Members. As in any organisation, however, regardless of whether it is Parliament, a public institution or a private sector company, we need to deal with that behaviour head on.

I cannot believe that many MPs do not want to work in a modern workplace or have the most modern workplace practices. Although some might not have employed people before they came here, many did, so they know what a good workplace is and what good workplace practice is. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, we should start at the beginning with our candidate selection process. I have the privilege of being involved in candidate selection for my party and I am impressed by what my party does to look at the qualities of the individuals who are accepted to stand for election. There may be more that we could do, however, to ensure that people have experience of running organisations, because that is what we expect them to do if they are successful in being selected and elected to this place.

Enormous strides have been made—no pun intended with regard to the Leader of the House—in recent months and years, which is in no small way attributable to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). She brought a vigour to addressing the issues that was second to none. I pay personal tribute to her and reinforce the tributes from across the House to her tenacity in navigating a minefield of interests to get the independent complaints and grievance scheme in place. We will be forever in her debt for that.

The Leader of the House talked in his opening remarks about his intention to introduce an instrument to ensure that non-recent cases could be heard. I say amen to that; it is vital that it is introduced immediately. My only question is, why delay until the autumn? Why can those non-recent cases not start to be heard from the moment the instrument is laid, so they can be brought forward in the summer when it is perhaps more convenient for people, and so there is no delay to his intention to make sure that everybody can be held to account?

I also note the introduction of the helplines and the training programme, which I have been on. I was very impressed by the quality of the training that was given and of the individuals giving the training. I do not care who someone is; everyone can get something out of the training, however experienced they are. I was the head of graduate recruitment in the firm that I worked for and I recruited many staff over my years in the private sector, but I learned an enormous amount about self-awareness, particularly in a digital age, which has come midway through many of our careers. The use of electronic media can unintentionally create tensions that none of us would want to exist.

There is also the behaviour code and the code of conduct. An enormous amount has been done in this space to address some of the issues that Gemma White raised in her excellent report, so I have only a few questions. I have huge respect for the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House, but I note that the report was commissioned by the House of Commons Commission. Although I believe that they are both members of the Commission, they are not responsible for it. Why, oh why—I have raised this issue before—are we talking again about an issue wholly in the remit of the House of Commons Commission, without the House of Commons Commission leading the debate on it? It asked Gemma White to produce the report and it has responded to it; indeed, as Gemma White clearly points out, it is the organisation most responsible for delivering on the report. As a Member of the House of Commons, I want to know where the accountability is so that we know how the House of Commons Commission has stuck to what Gemma White has set out and that it is being delivered on.

The House of Commons Commission is the most archaic bit of the House of Commons structure, and it is long overdue for reform. Unlike almost any other of our Committees, it is not chaired by an elected representative, or at least by somebody elected to that position; its membership is appointed, and it is not able, it appears, to come to the House of Commons to explain what it is doing. However, it is instrumental in making this a better place of work, a better parliamentary democracy and a better Parliament. Why is how the Commission operates still so opaque?

I can go on to the website and find details of the Commission’s meetings, although that is not always easy—and they are actions taken, rather than minutes of discussion. It is difficult, even for someone such as me who is interested in these issues, to stay abreast of what is going on. Is the biggest elephant in the room the need to understand who is accountable for implementing the Gemma White report? We have, of course, already had a debate about the Cox report, when the Commission had made very slow progress on the implementation of a number of recommendations.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire was right when she was Leader of the House to forever tell us that it is for Members to decide these things. The Commission, however, is the body that enables Members to have a collective thought and collective way of implementing things. Perhaps the current Leader of the House will be able to comment on that when he replies to the debate. I feel strongly that there is still opaqueness about how these things are handled. Why is that important? If we are to achieve the sort of institutional change that the Leader of the House, the shadow Leader of the House and the hon. Member for Glasgow North have spoken about, we must have clarity about accountability. At the moment, that clarity is not there.

We have not yet picked up on the fact that Gemma White did not receive any reports from Members about harassment and bullying by other Members. We should be concerned about that; as a body of 650 people, we will have such instances. Clearly, however, Members still feel that they are not capable of talking even to somebody independent. The Conservative party has a strong Whips Office that has changed radically in the past 10 years. We need to make sure that Members feel that they can talk about these things. I was concerned that Gemma White had no examples of Members wishing to talk to her about bullying and abuse from other Members. We need to address that.

I also wish to pick up on the fact that non-disclosure agreements were discussed and highlighted in the report. Will the Leader of the House discuss that when he responds to the debate? The recommendation is:

“IPSA should consider amending the wording of the standard confidentiality clause to make it clear that it does not prevent employees bringing a claim of bullying and harassment.”

I say clearly that all my members of staff already have a standard confidentiality clause. If they were to exit my employment, I would have absolutely no requirement to reinforce or reiterate that, because it continues to stand. It is already there in our employment contracts. Why are we allowing IPSA to assert that it is a requirement on Members to have a further confidentiality clause when people leave their employment? I know from the work of my Select Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee, that this can cause considerable confusion in people’s minds and a feeling that they are being muzzled from ever talking about adverse experiences in an employment setting. That requires a little more thought and consideration before we take it as read that IPSA should view confidentiality clauses and exit contracts, or exit agreements, as being standard, because legally that is not correct.

My final point concerns the independence of Members of Parliament. We jealously guard our independence, and we are right to do so. Our employment relationship with our staff has to be independent of interference from others—that is the right of MPs—but with that right comes a responsibility to act as a sensible and a good employer. Every employee here has the right to expect their MP, whoever they are and whichever party they represent, to act in a responsible manner. I absolutely agree with others who have made the point that that has to be a relationship of which we are in charge. The idea that IPSA would become the employer of my staff, potentially imposing conditions on their employment that are inconsistent with the way in which a particular constituency office is run, would be entirely unacceptable. MPs are right jealously to guard their independence, not because of any personal gain but because, if our democratic Parliament is to work in the way that our constituents expect it to work, we have to have MPs independent of interference from outside.

This is an important debate, and it is important for every Member to engage in it and to understand that treating our staff well is a hygiene factor in being a Member of Parliament, not an added extra. I hope that even Members who are not in the Chamber today can recognise that and make sure that they take part in the training, that they raise awareness among their staff of the helplines that are available, and that they adhere absolutely to the behaviour code and the code of conduct, so that we can be truly proud of this House of Parliament.

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[Maria Caulfield]

I have used that service, and its staff do provide a fantastic service. The point is that as an MP we have to approach them and know that their services are available. I recommend them to any MP because they are fantastic, but they are not available to staff. When I was working in the hospital and I had an issue, I could go to the HR department whether I was a team leader or an ordinary member of the team. That is the difference. Our staff do not have access to that wonderful support, advice and experience which could make a huge difference. The report recommends that they do have access to it.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) that MPs should remain as 650 small individual businesses, but changes do need to be made. We are treated as if we have autonomy over our staff, but there are some subtle things in the way that stop us. For example, I have a south-east constituency and my staff budget—it is not an expense, it is a budget—is £11,000 less than that for a London MP. Some of my staff live in London and some live in the south-east, which is as expensive as London. Some have to commute to London, spending £4,000 or £5,000 to do so. As I have £11,000 less in my budget, I cannot pay them as much or I cannot take on an extra member of staff. My small team, which does the casework and everything else that other staff members do, is under extra pressure from day one because they have the same workload as a London MP but without the same financial recognition. How is it fair that from day one the staff of non-London MPs already feel the pressure of being in a smaller team or of being less valued financially, while doing exactly the same work?

I have an office manager to whom I delegate responsibility for looking after some of the other members of the team: taking on appraisals, looking at staff leave, conducting staff training and working with them. Most of my staff work in the constituency office. They do not work in Parliament, so they cannot nip to the office next door in Norman Shaw North and say, “I have a difficult case; can we get some advice on it?” They are completely isolated as a team, and my office manager has the responsibility for looking after them. We have had members of the public come into the office in tears because we are the last port of call when the jobcentre has let them down, when they cannot get their housing benefit or when they have been made homeless on a Friday evening. They often land in tears in my office, and my staff, many of whom have just left university and do not have a huge amount of life experience, have to pick up the pieces.

Ultimately, I am responsible for my staff, but I am not there every day of the week. My office manager has to support them as a team. What training and support is available for those staff? I cannot do it all as their employer, so it is incumbent on the House of Commons to help MPs to provide that support for their staff—whether that means the senior staff who are delegated to look after them or the junior staff who have to do some very difficult work on a daily basis.

[Mrs Miller]

I apologise for not hearing the start of my hon. Friend’s speech. Does she not agree that there needs to be accountability for who is looking at that? This process needs to be led by Members, and therefore there is a role for the House of Commons Commission to be doing such things, although we do not really know whether it is doing that.

[Maria Caulfield]

I completely agree. Such things are part of our role, but I do not think they are treated seriously. We are seen as legislators and caseworkers, but our duty as an employer is seen as an expenses add-on. Until that is seen as a crucial part of our role, for which we need training on how to support our staff, including junior members of staff, a culture of staff welfare will not be created.

That brings me to my point about how we support MPs. I have been a MP for over four years. This is not a criticism of the Whips Office in any way—I do not think this is necessarily their job—but in that time, I have never had anyone sit down and ask me what my strengths and weaknesses are and what interests I have in policy. I have had health problems this year and I can get a slip any day of the week, but sometimes it would be nice for someone to sit down with me and say, “Can we give you extra support?” There is not the culture in this place to look after Members of Parliament, and that filters through to their staff. If we are dealing with a problem at the point at which it has become harassment, bullying or a sexual problem in the workplace, it is too late. We need to change the culture overall, and that starts with us looking after one another.

I come from an NHS background where training was ingrained in us. We all found that the fire training and so on was not what we wanted to be doing, but we had to do it; it was mandatory. Even as a bank nurse now, when I do shifts in the NHS, I get learning and development phoning me up to say, “You are not registered for your mandatory training. You will not be able to do any bank shifts until you have done it for this year.” I get HR telling me, “Your registration is due for renewal.” I have people checking on me.

We are busy people and we do not have someone to oversee what happens. That is exactly what is in the report. It says that we should have a body responsible to oversee us that can say, “Do you know your staff appraisals are overdue? Have you had those conversations with them? Have you looked at their annual leave? Are they taking their annual leave, or are you working them so hard that they feel that they cannot ask for it? Are they taking too much annual leave? Is there a problem with health and wellbeing?” We have no one.

We all know what it is like as busy MPs. I am just a Back Bencher—I do not have any other responsibilities—and I struggle to sit down with my staff every few months to go through some of the issues that they have. I absolutely agree, therefore, with the report’s recommendations that we need uniform policies and procedures, so that every MP’s office is the same; that assistance is provided with recruitment; that there is proactive contact with MPs’ staff; and that probationary periods are checked, because they can just go on indefinitely, with people on temporary contracts when they should be employed in substantive posts. We should ensure that appraisals are in place, because these are talented people. They are often graduates of universities, who could be getting good jobs anywhere else, but they can get stuck working as a caseworker, not getting a pay rise or staff development, which is absolutely criminal. Why? Because as MPs—as their employers—we are not there to support them.

There are lots of recommendations in the report that I strongly support, but I go back the point made by the former Leader of the House that when training has been provided—I know that the training on valuing people only started a few months ago—very few of us take up the offer. I think there needs to be more publicity around it. This week, we had a very good email from the Clerk of the House of Commons about the Valuing Everyone training, Members’ HR support, the health and wellbeing service, the sexual misconduct advisory service, the bullying and harassment reporting hotline and the employee assistance programme. There are great measures in place, but I put my hand on my heart and say that I have used none of them, and I have told my staff about none of them. If we do not read our own emails and act on them, no one oversees whether we use those crucial services.

I conclude by saying that I completely agree with the report. I believe we should have autonomy over our staffing, but we need support to be able to support our employees properly. I do not think we recognise how much is expected of MPs. We are members of probably one of the most hated professions in the country, and sometimes we need to give ourselves a break. We may be great constituency caseworkers or fabulous legislators, but there is no shame in saying that we are not sure how to employ people or how to look after those we employ. I urge everyone to read the recommendations, and to ensure that we and our staff take up the training and support that is available.

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[Justin Madders]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. People may sometimes feel that they are being amusing or engaging in banter, but they have no idea of the effect that that is having on the individual. Many sexual harassment cases over the years will have the same characteristic. That is why training is important, because we all must understand that some of the things we say can have a negative effect on people.

This behaviour has been happening for a long time, and perpetrators have been getting away with it, enabling them to carry on the cycle of abuse with the next member of staff, a problem that we absolutely must end. It is unsurprising that one contributor to the report states that staff have come to believe that there has been

“general disregard for the dignity, wellbeing and employment rights of MPs’ staff”.

I agree with that, and Gemma White agrees with that. She concludes that

“bullying and harassment in MPs’ offices is widespread and cultural”,

and it would be impossible for anyone who reads her report to conclude otherwise.

As has already been said, a minority of Members are involved in this kind of activity, but it is important to say at this point that Gemma White explicitly stated:

“Some Members were the subject of contributions from a number of different contributors.”

In some cases, we are talking not about isolated incidents, but about the same MP repeating a pattern of abusive behaviour with successive members of staff. The fact that this is just a minority must not stop us treating the matter with the utmost urgency. If the same names keep cropping up in reports, without any acknowledgment of wrongdoing or any action to put things right, we know that something is not working.

The majority of us, of course, are perfectly able to be fair and reasonable employers, but that is not an excuse for a small number who behave inappropriately. People have got away with that for too long, because we have not had the right procedures in place. We must now collectively find a way to deal with the situation, or we will all be responsible for what goes on in this place.

There is no place for bullying and harassment in any workplace, but we should be the exemplar of best practice. We should be the place that people look to for positive behaviours. We should set the standards for others to emulate. If we cannot get our own house in order, how can we effectively challenge the employment practices of others? We are failing badly to get our own house in order, because we have here another publication with yet more cases of bullying and harassment, but we have not properly implemented the recommendations from the last one.

We must stop dragging our feet. We must at least implement changes to employment practices to give our staff the same protections that we would expect from every other employer and that we would expect our constituents to have. We must ensure that the necessary steps are taken so that staff can report incidents without any fear of reprisal or retribution, because many who took part in the inquiry were clear that they felt unable to raise a complaint against their MP because, until July of last year, those complaints had to be made directly to that MP. In many cases, they were complaining to the boss about the boss’s behaviour, so who could blame them for concluding that there would be literally no point in doing so because the same person being complained about would be the judge and jury over that particular complaint?

Staff now have access to an independent complaints and grievance scheme, but it is clear that, even though the new system is in place, they still do not have confidence that it would not be career suicide to refer complaints to it. Indeed, Gemma White concludes that, even now, it is

“unlikely that the majority of bullying and harassment suffered by MPs’ staff will be reported under the ICGS.”

We must consider that seriously today.

Staff are simply not convinced of the process’s independence, so it is vital that we move to a fully independent process in which MPs are not able to sit in judgment on their colleagues in any way, shape or form. No longer should an employer be a judge in his or her cause. It really is not good enough for the Commission to recommend the non-involvement of Members in determining bullying and harassment cases. We have to move away from it altogether.

It is not good enough that there is a complete lack of clarity on the sanctions that can be imposed on an MP. The Women and Equalities Committee heard at the beginning of this month, in evidence on a gender-sensitive Parliament, that sanctions against MPs appear to amount only to an informal quiet word with a dozen or so offenders. If that is all that happens, who can blame staff for feeling that there is not much point in going through the system?

[Mrs Miller]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman raises that point. The Select Committee’s concern is that, even though there is now a formal grievance procedure in place, it appears that some senior members of staff still think it is the right procedure just to have a quiet word. If they are not recording who they are talking to, there is no ability to monitor repeat offenders. We are quite concerned that that procedure and practice still seems to be embedded in this place.

[Justin Madders]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that point. I find it incredible that we are still in that place. I cannot imagine that the contracts of employment of those staff do not make it explicitly clear that bullying and harassment are considered gross misconduct. A quiet word following an allegation of gross misconduct is not good enough, and it deters people from making valid complaints in future. That really has to change.

Even if we get to a truly independent process, we still need to think about why staff feel inhibited in making a complaint against their employer. The employer might have to write them a reference, or they might still share an office. Until recently, staff could not pursue a complaint at all if they left Parliament. I think that will change with the motion on the independent complaints and grievance scheme, but it was a ridiculous distinction to make—it would not be allowed in any other workplace—because a lot of people, for valid reasons, will not make a complaint until they have left their employment.

I am pleased that we will finally have a chance to extend the independent complaints and grievance scheme to cover non-recent cases of bullying and harassment. I do not know why we need to wait for the autumn, as has already been mentioned, and we have to be clear that this is not the final point on our journey but is a step towards it.

From what Gemma White has said, it is clear to me that, without effective sanctions and a truly independent complaints panel, we will not have true justice. It is bizarre that we can talk about extending the scheme, when the report basically says that staff do not have confidence because of the lack of independence and the lack of sanctions. That problem will not be rectified when we pass the motion on the independent complaints and grievance scheme, and we need to address it as a matter of urgency.

Ultimately, this comes down to the power imbalance between MPs and staff, the high demand for jobs in politics and the reliance on patronage in our political system, which means that the risk of abuse of power is all too great. We have 650 individual offices, which together employ more than 3,200 staff. Any other public sector organisation of that size would have a body that allows some degree of independent oversight of its employment practices, whether it be the use of probation periods, appraisals, performance management or training.

As an absolute minimum, we need basic policies and procedures to drag our worst offenders into the 21st century, and it cannot be ignored that probation periods and performance management were repeatedly raised by contributors to the report. Those of us who already recognise employment practices in a fair and reasonable manner use them to support and develop our staff, but they can be used as a stick to prevent people from making complaints—those are the tactics of a bullying employer. So I welcome the Commission’s statement that it will begin consulting immediately to see what implementation issues there will be in the creation of a new HR department, because it is clear that we need to give much more support to Members and staff in developing and implementing policies in a fair and reasonable manner. That we do not already do this in 2019 is shocking to the outside world, so we have to get on with it as soon as possible.

Having spoken to staff, I know that they are keen to see that department set up, because, as Gemma White recommends, it would also support staff welfare. We hope it would also introduce initiatives such as a buddy system for new staff, to reduce isolation, and peer mentoring for staff who need extra support. Many staff do this in an informal way already, but others are struggling behind closed doors and are not calling for help but actually need it.

There is a role for IPSA or a similar independent body in respect of the introduction of both a leavers survey and a way to collect data to monitor MPs’ employment records, which would help to identify trends or specific pockets of concern in individual offices. That is important, because there must be nowhere for bullies to hide. Only through introducing transparent systems and independent scrutiny will we be able to end the impunity that currently exists in some quarters to hire and fire at will. Let us imagine it became public knowledge that a Member had gone through a dozen or more staff in a couple of years—questions would rightly be asked about what was going on there. So although I also welcome the Commission’s announcement that it will consult on how to collate this data and use it to improve employment practices, I again urge it to do that with the utmost expediency.

Finally, I come to an issue that I have spoken about before and that the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) spoke about at length. Many MPs enter Parliament with little or no management training or experience, but that cannot be used as an excuse. If we know MPs lack that training, we should be providing it, to make sure that no one falls behind. Even with my experience in the law, I would still have welcomed a Members’ staff handbook, with correct procedures and policies in place, and I was shocked to find that there was little support here when I was starting out as a new MP, having to hire staff, set up offices and so on. Clearly, with such a low take-up so far of the Valuing Everyone training, voluntary training is not the answer. I see no reason why that training should not be mandatory for all current Members and their staff, and it should be completed within a short timeframe. It is up to us as Parliament to set the standards not just for this place, but for the rest of the country. We cannot lecture others on the way they treat their staff if we cannot get our own house in order. We must be an example of the best practice, not the worst. That starts with getting our house in order, and getting true independence in our procedures and meaningful sanctions for those who transgress.

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[Mel Stride]

I do not know; the House of Commons Commission will consider that. I interpret the hon. Gentleman’s question as showing concern that we should always be aware of the costs of putting recommendations into place, and he is entirely correct. Often, reports come forward with recommendations, and off we go saying that we should accept everything exactly as it is presented; further down the line, we decide that it was rather bureaucratic and expensive. In making sure that the recommendations of the report are bedded in correctly, we should have such issues at the forefront of our minds.

[Mrs Miller]

No one would expect non-recent cases to be dealt with immediately; it is obvious that they will take time to look into. Why cannot the Leader of the House enable cases to be brought forward now, while the recruitment process is going on? Clearly, during the summer period people might have more time to gather the necessary information to submit a claim.

[Mel Stride]

The message from the Dispatch Box this afternoon is that we expect these measures to be introduced by October. Therefore, the message to anybody who is minded to come forward is that there is now time to prepare prior to October, when we hope that the independent assessors, who will handle that work, will be in place. I think that I can at least signal that that is our anticipation, and hope that that in itself is helpful.

Cox Report: Implementation

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

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[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.

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[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]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

And I am sure that is the point that the right hon. Lady is about to make.

[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—

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[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.

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[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Parliament as a Workplace

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) on securing this important debate, and I look forward to hearing the other contributions. I commend the work that has already been done, particularly, as she says, by the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), Mr Speaker and many others, including the former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). I am sure that the new Leader of the House will be a valiant champion of the need to ensure that this is a good place to work in future.

We have to start this debate with some cold, hard facts. We know that we are a group of people who are hugely committed to our communities, and that we are professional, sensible people, but all too often this place can be portrayed as chaotic because of the way that we do, or do not, organise ourselves. That is not only down to the Government’s motions and the Order Paper. We have to start to look at how this place looks from the outside if we really are to resolve the problems that we face in respect of this place, not only as a workplace for Members of Parliament, but as somewhere that represents our constituents.

Winston Churchill once said that

“we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”

Never a truer word has been said of this place. I love this place and would never want to see Parliament move out of it, but we have to take it into account when we try to understand why it currently does not work as a workplace for so many people. The building was built for a time when this country was a very different place and very different people became Members of Parliament. How many people were wheelchair users back when this place was first built, or rebuilt after the fire? How many people were women? We know the answer to that one: absolutely none. This building was built and our procedures were set out when women and disabled people were not considered, and when dads had few responsibilities compared with those they have today. We have to take all these things into consideration as we move forward.

[Mr Sheerman]

The right hon. Lady is making an excellent point, as did the previous speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), but both are MPs quite close to London. The Speaker once came to Huddersfield and spent a lovely day with me. When he got off the train, he said, “This is a long way, isn’t it?”. It is 192 miles. In some senses, the perspectives of those of who come to work here from a long distance away are qualitatively different from the perspectives of people who represent London and south-east England.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman has brought up an important point. Part of the problem we have is that each one of us is very different. I am a commuting MP, and my journey to and from this place takes an hour and 40 minutes. I am sure it does not take the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge an hour and 40 minutes to get home—I hope it does not; otherwise, she needs to have a chat with her Mayor of London. It is wrong to sweep us all into a “London and the south-east” bag and assume that we all have the same challenges. It is different for each of us.

[Mr Sheerman]

It is fundamental, though, is it not? We start at 2.30 pm on a Monday because people have to get here from Scotland and the north of England, flying, using rail and so on, and these days we finish early on a Thursday because people have to get back to their constituencies. We are moulded a bit by the distances that many of us are from Parliament.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that those are factors to consider. In fact, one reason why I was not going to talk about start and finish times was that it is a specific discussion. If he will allow me to take issue slightly with what he said, I feel that certainty is far more important. We can all cope with a lot of things in life as long as we know what is going on. All too often, the chaos that I mentioned feels very real, not just to us and staff in our parliamentary offices, but to members of staff here. I have been asked a number of times in the Tea Room, “Ms Miller, do you know when the vote might come?”. People want to be able to plan their days. The way in which this place is organised, and particularly the use of urgent questions, is a real problem for us, but I will come on to that in more detail in a moment.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

[Mrs Miller]

Of course I give way to the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that Madam Deputy Speaker will not take a dim view of my allowing interventions.

[Tom Brake]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that another factor that must be taken into account is whether the Government of the day have a majority? She was elected in 2005, and I suspect that between 2005 and 2015, there was a degree of stability in people’s ability to plan work, because successive Governments had a majority. When that is not the case, things become much more unpredictable.

[Mrs Miller]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is not the point that I am making. He is right that there is an unpredictability when we have to deal with enormous issues such as Brexit. I suppose that I am talking about the things that we can control that we are not controlling, and that, I think, is part of a modern workplace. I will come on to that in a bit more detail.

We all agree that being a Member of this place is an immense honour, but that does not mean that we have to keep it in a time warp. Sometimes we feel the great pressure of the history of this place. We may not want to challenge what has gone before for fear of being seen to be disrespectful of it. We must acknowledge that that is a pressure on each of us as Members, perhaps in different ways.

Modernisation would help us to attract new and different people to being Members of Parliament. Yes, perhaps it would attract more women, more disabled people or people with younger children, but it would be people who want a less chaotic and more certain place in which to work—a place to which they feel they can contribute.

There is a much more fundamental issue here for all of us, regardless of our gender, sexuality or ethnicity. If we thought about this place in a more focused way, it would help us to retain Members of Parliament. This place is at its best when we have Members who have been here for many years as well as Members who are brand new, because that gives a perspective on procedure, debate and the history of this place. We need to work far harder at retaining MPs. Women in particular move away from this place far too soon. It would also help us to support better our staff in our parliamentary offices, and those parliamentary staff who support us so freely and so well. We have a responsibility to act to make sure that this is a modern workplace.

Another more fundamental issue that I will place on the table for others to comment on is trust in Parliament. We can take this debate today at a very superficial level—as being about women with children, childcare and nurseries—but it is also about how much trust people have in a workplace that looks more akin to the 18th century than the 21st.

The Brexit process has challenged people’s trust not just in parliamentarians, but in the nature of Parliament. We need to keep that in mind as we move forward and think very carefully about the challenge that the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge has put on the table today. We cannot continually kick into the long grass the need to modernise this place and to get to grips with some of the issues set out by her, me, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake).

Some of the groundwork has been done with “The Good Parliament” guide, and I think that all of us would want to put on record our sincere thanks to Professor Sarah Childs for what she has done. Some of those changes, as the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge said, have come into play. The nursery is very important, not just for us, but for our staff. My staff use that nursery, and I can keep great staff, which I might not otherwise have been able to do, because we have that nursery.

Proxy voting is long overdue, but being modern is not just about people who have small babies. My very small babies are now very large babies; in fact, the youngest is 17. It is actually even more difficult—you might have some sympathy with this, Madam Deputy Speaker—to look after a 12-year-old, if you have no childcare, when you are trying to go and vote or have been called in for a meeting during a recess. On more than one occasion, my children were parked with a policeman at the back of the Speaker’s Chair—thank goodness for those policemen providing that help and support—because nothing else was available. As we think of modernisation, we must think more roundly about the pressures on our lives at times other than those very important times when we have small children, and that we think about buildings and procedures hand in hand.

I hope that this debate will make us feel that we need a clear plan for moving forward. I pay tribute to Sarah Childs for her report. I pay tribute to the work that the Speaker has done, the work done by the Commons reference group on representation and inclusion, and all the other elements of work that has been going on, including, obviously, around the Cox report. Many, many different things are happening, but to me it all feels very fragmented. As somebody who is incredibly interested in this issue, I have found it very difficult to keep up with what is really going on. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, who is on the Commission, will of course know far more than I do, and will be on top of it all, but it can be very difficult for many of us to know the long-term vision for this House as a modern workplace.

It feels very much as though—this is meant not as a criticism, but as an observation of fact—modernisation is being considered in quite a piecemeal way. We need to think about the risks that that poses to our being able to hold people to account for delivery of modernisation. We need to have clear managerial responsibility for modernisation. At the end of this debate, who will be responsible for making sure that the things we have talked about actually happen? I do not think it should be the Leader of the House, because he is also part of Government—it should be wider than that. We need to think about the procedures and the processes in play.

One immediate and very deep concern that I have is for the mental health of our parliamentary and constituency staff, and of Members of Parliament, because the chaotic approach and uncertainty that I mentioned are well-known triggers for mental health problems. If we do not act quite swiftly on this, we are at risk of being widely criticised for not acting. Constant uncertainty has an impact. We do not know when debates will start every day, because we do not know how many urgent questions there will be. We think, “Does that mean I will have to cancel or move meetings?” Of course, it is not just us who do that—it is also our parliamentary staff. Some Members who do not have parliamentary staff here have to do it themselves. It is a very inefficient use of time.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge highlighted inefficiencies around voting, but I would say that the issue is much more widespread than that. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington talked about Brexit. Yes, that has certainly brought a lot more unpredictability into the system, but we could take control of a great deal of that unpredictability and that chaotic feel.

I call on those who are able to influence these matters to hold an urgent review of the House timetable. I would be interested in the Leader of the House’s comments. He is relatively new to the post, but I am sure that he already has well-formed views on these things. Could we, for instance, put urgent questions before questions and debates? If these questions are so urgent, let us have them before we start the day. As the hon. Member for Huddersfield said, most Members of Parliament are here in London. The vast majority are not like me, commuting on the train. We could therefore perhaps have urgent questions at 8.30 am, before the day starts, so that they do not disrupt the flow of Members’ days—or perhaps from 9.30 am to 10.30 am, to help people with caring responsibilities. That would be a way forward. It seems straightforward to me; I am not sure why we do not do it.

When I joined this place, I had three children, the youngest of whom was three. I have a husband, and I care for two elderly parents who live with me. I am a living and breathing sandwich generation person, and I do not think we speak up enough for sandwich generation people. We often hear people with young children talk, but we do not hear those with caring responsibilities talk enough. I believe greatly that we should all do more to look after our elderly and ailing parents. As well as talking about nurseries, we need to talk about elder care issues, for not only ourselves but our members of staff.

We need a Parliament to be proud of, that attracts the best to stand for election and to be members of staff here, regardless of their age, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or caring responsibilities. Our building, procedures, culture and philosophy here are hugely important—they shape our Parliament, but what should also shape our Parliament is the people we represent. How does a young woman who comes here to visit me feel when I take her into Committee Room 14, which I love, and she sees no women on the wall, just a group of extremely old men? How does any person from a black and minority ethnic background feel about how representative this Parliament is of them when they see nobody of any minority ethnic background on the walls? I will probably now be corrected; there will be someone somewhere. How does a wheelchair user feel when they have to use the service lift to get around?

We need to take all those issues into account when we talk about restoration and renewal. How do people feel when their meetings with their MP are cancelled at a moment’s notice because three urgent questions are granted on the day, with little notice, causing the sort of chaos that we now see daily?

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I apologise for not having been here for the beginning of the debate; I hope I am not being discourteous. I am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend, and I agree strongly with most of what she says. However, I am concerned about her suggestion of having urgent questions at some other time than when the House is sitting. Surely the whole point of an urgent question is that a Member of Parliament —a Back Bencher—can raise an urgent matter, and the Speaker may or may not allow that to occur. If there is a special slot for UQs at some time other than when the House is sitting, surely they would lose their entire purpose.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is right. I suppose I am suggesting that we would sit from half-past 9. Moving towards a more nine-to-five approach to our day here would not only be better for people who live in London; this place would then look a little bit more like everybody else’s workplace. I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington experiences the same thing, but when I am on the train in the morning, my constituents say, “Why were you on the train at 20 minutes past 10 on Monday night? That can’t be a very effective use of your time.” I am not particularly suggesting that we should have urgent questions when the House is not sitting. I am just suggesting that we need to think about organising them into the day, so that they do not continually create a sense of chaos, with no one knowing when debates will start or finish.

[Mr Sheerman]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way again; she is being very kind. She has paid a lot of tributes, but I hope she does not mind me saying that she has missed one. Having been in this place a long time, I know that it became civilised because women came here. I do not want to use the “B” word too often, because I will get a bad reputation, but Tony Blair made a hell of a difference to this place. He helped to increase the number of women in this place, and women have changed it a lot since 1997. There is much more to do, but we should put it on the record that women have already civilised this place almost unrecognisably from when I was a young MP.

[Mrs Miller]

That is an interesting reflection. Having a broader range of people in Parliament, regardless of gender, would also have a civilising effect, but I tend to agree. It is nice to have a Parliament that resembles the constituencies we represent.

This is such an important debate—perhaps even more so than the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge intimated. It is about trust in this place, because if this place does not look like anything else and does not act in an apparently professional and organised manner, we undermine our constituents’ trust in a place that is there to represent them and their views. Parliament enables us to serve our constituents, and we need to ensure, in planning for the future, that this is a place they can relate to and is accessible for them. Right now, we can make real change quite quickly and create far more certainty in our days by stopping the use of UQs at the beginning of the day to delay, amend or sometimes even obliterate debate completely because of the number that have been granted.

I will close my remarks there, but reflecting what the hon. Member for Huddersfield said a few moments ago, let me say that when I first met you, Madam Deputy Speaker, you said: “Women in this place have to work twice as hard as men, because we are still not 50% of the people here.” You are absolutely right, and hon. Ladies will know that. Part of my contribution to the debate was really to reflect on the comment you made to me all those years ago. We do need far more women here to have the civilising influence that the hon. Gentleman was talking about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) on this excellent debate. It is sad that it is not more broadly attended because it is an important topic. As a Member of Parliament who has to spend anywhere between 10 and 15 hours a week travelling to and from my constituency, I was grateful to hear of the great experiences that others have who travel shorter distances.

Members have made important contributions. The late and much-missed Jo Cox said that we in Westminster

“are behind the curve compared with working practice in much of industry, and the charitable and public sectors, and that is a problem… if we act differently and change the culture and working practices here, we can change how others operate. We should do that, because we are here to change and improve the United Kingdom.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 46WH.]

I could not agree more. If we are to make laws and policies that are forward thinking and progressive, we must get our own house in order.

When I came to this place, I could not help thinking it was a cross between Downton Abbey and Hogwarts. I know people have great affection for the Houses of Parliament, but there is no doubt it is stuck in the past. It is steeped in great history, but it is not forward looking enough. It has a rich history of failing to be a workplace that is anywhere near as functional or inclusive as it should be. The hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) spoke of his shock and surprise when he arrived here to see how many pubs there were. I shared that experience.

Of the many places I have ever worked—the corporate industry, the energy sector, other MPs’ offices, foreign Governments—the only place I have seen something similar is the media. I started at Good Morning Television the year after the last pub in the building had been closed, and it was closed for a very good reason. People often visit us here in our workplace—for example, we bring constituents into this place—and it is still a mystery to me that there are so many pubs and places to buy alcohol and that alcohol is served during the day at receptions.

None the less, progress has been made. When we introduced proxy voting, I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. It has been interesting to hear from male colleagues whose partners have recently had babies or are about to have them and who have missed out on proxy voting but who will now benefit from it. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has just introduced a proposal for extended parental leave for those who have premature babies. That is a sensible proposal that I hope the Minister will consider.

Dame Laura Cox’s report last October concluded that a

“culture of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence”

was enabling abuses of power and the mistreatment of colleagues to go unchecked. It should not have taken one of our colleagues having to come here in a wheelchair on the day she was due to give birth to force proxy voting through. She was incredibly brave in what she did—she stood by her principles—and it is because of her that we have finally taken that step forward.

We have heard many stories about an endemic culture that normalises bullying and harassment, which continue to permeate our politics. That is the sad reality of decades and centuries of ancient tradition in this place. We have plans to refurbish this place. It is predicted to cost between £4 billion and £6 billion of taxpayers’ money just to bring this place and the other place up to standard. The Scottish Parliament, which will shortly celebrate its 20th anniversary, cost a little under half a billion pounds. We could build between eight and 10 Scottish Parliaments for the cost of the refurbishment. Some argue that this place would be better turned into a museum and that we could build a new Parliament in another part of the UK.

[Mrs Miller]

I did not want to stop the hon. Lady’s flow, but she referred earlier to the Cox report and the grievance procedures. I hope that she will have noted that we have secured a short debate on the Floor of the House next Tuesday to press for progress in those areas. I hope that she will be able to support that debate.

[Hannah Bardell]

The right hon. Lady has read my mind, because I was coming to that. I am glad to see that among the threadbare business for next week there will be an update on that important piece of work. It is very important that we move that forward. I commend her on the important work that she and the Women and Equalities Committee, which she chairs, have done on this. She said that the Brexit process had challenged people’s trust in politics and in this place. I agree with that and would go further: it has exposed the crumbling relic of a democratic institution that this place is. We face the prospect of having a candidate for Prime Minister who wants to prorogue Parliament and have a no-deal Brexit, which will have a devastating impact. How will we get public trust if we cannot even have proper business and legislation in this place?

The right hon. Lady talked about the built environment and the paintings around this place. I have had the good fortune to sit on the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, and it has been a privilege to do so and particularly to see the work that has been done on the 209 Women project. I commend all those involved in that project, but during that period, I learned that 25 times more money had been spent over the past 20 years on buying pictures of men for this place than had been spent on buying pictures of women. Let us not forget that the photographs of the female parliamentarians who took part in the 209 Women project were taken by female photographers, who were not paid, which is a really important point. When we are trying to support women and their work, we must remember that they should be properly recognised. Without radical changes to this place to make it more inclusive, we will not properly reflect society.

We have made significant strides. We are the gayest Parliament in the world, or one of the gayest, and I am proud to be a woman who is gay in this place. When I stood for election and for selection, I stood against four men. I looked at the line-up and thought, “Why do I want to do this? Why do I want to go up against four men to go to a place that is very male dominated?” I did it because I wanted to be part of the change that I know many young women cannot see.

In Scotland, we have also made significant strides. We have a gender-balanced Cabinet. When Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister, she was one of only a handful of leaders in the world to do that. It is really important that we have politicians who are hard-working, relatable and can bring their personal experiences to this place. We saw that in the most recent election. There are Members across this House with a vast array of life experiences, but we have to make sure that we have that not just in Parliament and its elected representatives, but in our media. I often look up at the Press Gallery, at the press who are looking down at us, and I do not see many female faces or people of colour. It is really important that we have people reporting on our politics who are as diverse as possible.

We have had contributions from Members who have spoken about access to this place. If this building was being built from scratch today, there is absolutely no way in which it would meet health and safety standards. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge talked about the voting system. We have proxy voting, but electronic voting would save us a huge amount of time. On the last count that I did, which was in March, I calculated that we had spent 205 hours—five and a half working weeks—just voting. Given that Parliament sits for only 35 or 36 weeks a year, a huge amount of time is being wasted just on voting. Nobody is arguing that we should not be here debating and voting. That is extremely important, but, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said, perhaps we could have an allotted time for urgent questions and have predictability in our business, particularly when we have people travelling from our constituencies, businesses and other organisations to come to see us in Parliament. Having to cancel meetings at the last minute and not being able to get back for children’s events and caring responsibilities is a ridiculous situation. There is no other such employment anywhere. We do our constituents an injustice, and in my view we cannot properly represent them and their issues when there is such a lack of predictability, progress and activity from a legislative perspective. Brexit has dominated so much of the legislative timetable that it has created and exposed the inadequacies of the system.

I understand that people like the banter and to have a wee chat in the voting Lobbies, but for goodness’ sake, we live in a modern world. We should be able to have those meetings and engage with one another. It just exposes the inaccessibility of the Government and the inability to get answers from them that people feel the need to use the time in the voting Lobbies just to corner other people, because they cannot get the proper responses, meetings and time that they feel they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I congratulate Sir Simon Woolley on his elevation in the Queen’s birthday honours. It is well deserved. I mentored someone from Operation Black Vote last year. It has an incredibly good set of people who come from different backgrounds; the person whom I mentored worked in social care. That is the kind of organisation that we need to have.

I do not know if you are aware of this, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the Commissions of both Houses have responded to the UK gender-sensitive parliament audit, the first ever such audit produced in the UK. The Commissions are monitoring and publishing annual progress against four of the audit’s priority recommendations. The kind of recommendations that they are prioritising are

“Developing a parliamentary policy for children and families”,

informed by good practice in other Parliaments;

“responding to the Cox report, and…forthcoming inquiries”

on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct; awareness of the support available to MPs, peers and staff

“to address abuse and threats via social media”;

and making information

“more readily available on the different groups or organisations in Parliament with specialist knowledge…and clearly signposted”

in order to

“support parliamentarians to take account of gender impacts in their work”.

We are pleased that the monitoring will continue.

Many Members have mentioned restoration and renewal, which gives us an opportunity to focus on the physical aspects. We need to make life much easier for people with disabilities or hearing difficulties. In new buildings such as Portcullis House, it is much easier for those with hearing difficulties to hear people. Everything possible has to be done to make Parliament accessible.

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke is right: a number of reports are coming out and we must make sure we do not lose sight of any of them. They need to be pulled together; the House authorities are aware of that, and certainly the Clerk of the House has his eye on how they will all pull together.

[Mrs Miller]

I have a genuine question: the Clerk of the House is not responsible to Members here; how do we solve that problem? It is very difficult for Members to know who is responsible for these things, because the Clerk cannot come to the Floor of the House.

[Valerie Vaz]

I did not mean that they were responsible; ultimately it is a matter for the Commission to pull those reports together. Reports will come to the Commission and will then be disseminated. I do not know whether the right hon. Lady is aware of this, but many of the responses given to the Commission are disseminated; if she checks her inbox and the parliamentary intranet she will see that everything that goes on in the Commission is published, as are any reports that need to be brought to people’s attention.

There is political will on this. It is not just a matter for the Leader of the House and the Opposition parties. We will work together, but certainly the Commission is the governing body at this stage, until things change—if they do; and if people want a more accountable Commission, that is what will happen. At present, however, these matters are for the parties nominated to the Commission, and the Clerk of the House. It is not for individual MPs to take it on themselves to do these things, although I have to say that when individual MPs have good ideas and take them to various places such as the Commission, they come to fruition. The right hon. Lady sat on the Speaker’s reference Committee; I know she is not on it currently, but that shows that there are good things that people can pull together. Things can and do happen.

[Mrs Miller]

Does the hon. Lady think the current House of Commons Commission is accountable, and if not would she support change?

[Valerie Vaz]

Well, we are all elected, and we are all appointed by our parties; we also have two non-executives who sit—[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady says we are appointed, but the Leader of the House and I are on it by virtue of our parties through the usual channels; that is the way it works. I am sure she is not casting any aspersions on the previous or current Leader of the House. It is an interesting way of working. The Clerks—the House authorities—have to be responsible for the way the House operates, and then things are done through the Commission. the fact that we have a Commission is very good. I sat on the House of Commons Governance Committee; we heard evidence on how things it works, and things changed as a result of that. There is an opportunity, if Members wish, to have another House of Commons Governance Committee—whether the Leader of the House and I would be on it, I do not know. The work is disseminated, however, as the right hon. Lady will see if she checks the intranet.

Of course we also have the Cox report, and Alison Stanley has now reported on whether the independent complaints and grievance scheme works. Her report makes for interesting reading. A unit has been tasked with implementing some work. We have a newly appointed independent director of cultural transformation, Julie Harding, who is doing town hall meetings with staff and trying to understand what goes on in order to get cultural change, and that will continue.

In a previous debate, I said I did not know what was happening to Professor Sarah Childs’ recommendations, and suggested that we do what is normally done to keep track of projects: have a Gantt chart, on which we collect all the recommendations. As the right hon. Lady is Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, I wonder if she might look at the report three years on, and commission a further inquiry on where we are on Professor Sarah Childs’ report and how many recommendations have been actioned. People thought the proxy voting was going to be difficult, but it has been as smooth as possible and works really well.

The right hon. Lady’s Committee produced a report on women in the House in January 2017, and I notice that the Government rejected all six of the recommendations in their response in September. One recommendation was that all the parties should aim for 45% of their Members of Parliament to be women. Her Committee also said that section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 should be implemented. The Government responded that they did not want to do that, and that they would rather just talk to the political parties, but I wonder if the Leader of the House could take that away and look at it, and perhaps report back at a later date. Many hon. Members have touched on the fact that we are becoming a diverse Parliament. I have to say that 31 of the 52 minority ethnic Members are from the Labour party; 19 are from the Conservatives, one is from the Lib Dems and one from the Independent Group. Exactly half are women, so we are getting it right on that score.

Another important report, “Race in the workplace” by Baroness McGregor-Smith, was published on 28 February 2017. It found that people are still being held back in the workplace because of the “colour of their skin”, which is costing the UK economy the equivalent of 1.3% of GDP a year. She said that if black and minority ethnic people progressed in the workplace at the same rate as their white counterparts, the UK economy could be boosted by £24 billion. The McGregor-Smith review made 26 recommendations. One urged the Government to create a free online unconscious bias training resource that would be available to everyone in the UK, and to develop a simple guide on how to discuss race in the workplace. Two years on from that review, I ask the Government and the Leader of House to assess where we are on that. As Baroness McGregor-Smith said:

“The time for talking is over. Now is the time to act.”

More importantly, on 28 February2017, the Government launched a business, diversity and inclusion group to bring together business leaders and organisations to develop ways of removing barriers in the workplace and monitoring employees’ progress. The then Business Minister, the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), chaired the group. She immediately wrote to the FTSE 350 companies, asking them to drive increased diversity in the workplace and to take up the McGregor-Smith review, but sadly there are still just six women chief executive officers in the FTSE 100 companies. More needs to be done. According to a recent report by Green Park, there are only five BAME CEOs in FTSE 100 companies, and 48 FTSE 100 companies had no ethnic minority presence on their boards in 2018.

Hon. Members will know that we always talk about the gender pay gap, and that is important because this Parliament not only looks at itself but also looks outside. A key figure shows that in 2018 women worked for free for 51 days of the year because of the gender pay gap. We must close that gap as soon as possible. We Labour Members feel that we have a proud record on progressing women’s rights. We brought in the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Equality Act 2010 and the minimum wage, and we introduced Sure Start. Our shadow Cabinet is nearly 50% women, and we hope that that will continue. The important thing is that many people outside this place perhaps cannot afford the things that we can, such as their own workplace nursery. If we were to implement our policies, the extension of the 30 hours of free childcare would make an important difference to women in the workplace generally, whether or not they ended up in here, and families on the lowest incomes would be eligible for additional subsidised hours on top of the 30 hours.

It is vital that we make this place fit for the 21st century for everyone who works here, who visits and who wants to come here. We all want our Parliament and our democracy to thrive, so we should be continuously looking for opportunities to improve it, and I know that all Members, whether new or old, are constantly doing that. As we look for opportunities here, we must recognise that changes can be made through legislation, and that as we change ourselves, we can also change society to make it more equal.

Business of the House

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady will realise that that is way above my pay grade. I do not determine which Ministers come to the House, but of course the appropriate Minister will be here to answer that debate.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is curious that, given how much debate there has been outside this place on the issue of non-disclosure agreements this week—agreements that silence people who have been bullied or even assaulted at work—there has not been an opportunity here for MPs to scrutinise the Government on their response to the court decision on the Philip Green case. Will the Leader of the House ensure that time is given for the Government to set out their plan on how they are going to regulate non-disclosure agreements?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend raises a very serious issue, and I commend her for all the work she has done in this area. It is very concerning that non-disclosure agreements are clearly being used to hide workplace harassment and to intimidate victims into silence. It is clearly unacceptable. NDAs cannot stop a worker whistleblowing. It is very important that people are aware of that, especially some of the most vulnerable people in our workplaces. I can assure her that we will shortly be consulting on measures to improve the regulation of NDAs.

Proxy Voting

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

May I start by offering my congratulations to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on the arrival of her son? I am sure that we would all want to send our best wishes to her.

I will also begin by referencing a certain Professor Sarah Childs, because it was her report in 2016 that concluded that the House of Commons had in the past “lacked the institutional will” to address issues of representation and inclusion. I am sure that Professor Childs will join us today in recognising that things have changed and we have started to consider these matters in a great amount of detail. I pay tribute to the Leader of the House and the Mother of the House, who have done so much on this issue, as well as the Chair of the Procedure Committee and many more who have made today’s events possible.

May I gently suggest to Members that while we can be celebratory, we can also challenge ourselves to do much better? Members have to take responsibility for the modernisation of this place. The piecemeal approach that we are taking to modernisation has driven many of the amendments to the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), although only one of them has been selected. We need to be better at shaping our vision for the future of what this place should be in totality, rather than simply focusing on one issue at a time. We need to make sure that we do not exclude anybody from standing for election to this place because of their gender, disability, race, religion or sexuality. As an organisation, we have not yet grasped the bigger role that we have to play in picking up the picture that was so eloquently painted by Professor Sarah Childs in her report, which has also been discussed in “The Good Parliament” guide and at the Speaker’s Conference in 2010.

Mr Speaker, you have had a pivotal role in driving forward change in this place, but your enthusiasm for change cannot completely take the place of Members’ support for that change. We cannot simply do this in a piecemeal way. We need to ensure that important questions such as that raised in the intervention of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford)—whether the measure should be extended to people with other caring responsibilities, particularly for terminally ill family members—are answered before we go much further. If we want a more representative Parliament, with people who have real-life experience, we have to be able to accommodate the needs of that group and we need to encourage those people to join us.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has stated publicly that the House of Commons may well be in breach of its public sector equality duty to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The Women and Equalities Committee believes that we have a role to play in providing more scrutiny of the way in which the House of Commons proceeds on equality issues, so I am pleased to tell the House that we have decided to set up a Sub-Committee to look specifically at the scrutiny of equality in this place—yes, holding ourselves as parliamentarians to account over every aspect of the working of this place so that we turn those wonderful words into practice not just in the future, but now. That is a hugely important part of our job. We are the custodians of the future not just for British business and British institutions, but for Parliament itself. We have to live up to those expectations and deliver now.

Proxy Voting

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Leader of the House for what she has said. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) also asked what discussions the Leader of the House had had with my office, to which the answer is that the Leader of the House and I have discussed this matter from time to time. I have made extremely clear privately, as I have made extremely clear publicly, my desire for progressive change and my impatience with its absence. More particularly, what I would like to say to the hon. Lady and for the benefit of the House is this: I can assure colleagues that if and when the House agrees to the necessary resolution and Standing Order, I will ensure that I have a scheme ready to be activated, so that Members can rapidly—indeed, I think instantly—apply for a proxy vote, and their nominated proxy can then cast that vote the next day. I think colleagues will agree that that is crystal clear.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House not only for her statement but for her personal commitment to supporting, in particular, pregnant and new mothers—and new fathers—in Parliament. I fully support what she has outlined today. She talked about modernising the workplace. Proxy voting is only one aspect of modernising this, frankly, prehistoric workplace in Parliament. So many aspects of Parliament need modernisation, and change, as this issue has shown, is far too slow and fragmented. Where does responsibility for driving forward that change lie? I know that it does not lie with the Government.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her comment and question. I completely agree with her. Many of us—if not all of us—across this House want Parliament to be a more family-friendly place. There have been a huge number of efforts, including by you, Mr Speaker, and by right hon. and hon. Members across the House to change the sitting hours to make them more family-friendly, for example. There are now better childcare facilities on the estate. There is a greater use of technology to make it easier to go about our jobs. We have done a huge amount of work, with cross-party collaboration, to bring in a new behaviour code and a new complaints procedure to make people feel that they can be treated with the dignity and respect that everybody deserves in this place. There is a huge amount more to do. I am committed to working with colleagues to make more progress. My right hon. Friend and I met only yesterday to talk about what more we can do, cross-party, to try to ensure that we have a more family-friendly Parliament that encourages people from all walks of life to want to come here and take up a role representing their constituents.

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.

Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I would certainly be very happy to discuss how the hon. Gentleman and colleagues can feed into the review. As he will be aware, the ICGS steering group is made up of Members of this House and of the other place, as well as trade union members and members of staff of MPs and peers. Nevertheless, it will be for a wide variety of stakeholders to feed into that process, and I would be delighted to discuss that with him.

Turning now to Dame Laura’s report, its findings are shocking. As I said on 16 October, it was important that the House leadership responded promptly and comprehensively. The House of Commons Commission has met twice since then and has agreed in full Dame Laura’s three key recommendations. The commission has further directed the Commons Executive Board to produce a speedy action plan in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, which will be taken forward with the help and support of the external members of the Commission.

I would now like to turn to each of Dame Laura’s key recommendations. First, she recommends that the Valuing Others and Respect policies, which were available to House staff, are discarded. House staff have been able to access the ICGS since it began in July, so the House of Commons Commission has agreed that the pre-existing policies should be discarded.

Secondly, Dame Laura recommends that the new ICGS is amended to ensure that those House employees with complaints involving historical allegations can access the new scheme. I think it is important to clarify that House staff already do have the same rights of access to the ICGS as everyone else here. The steering group agreed that historical allegations would be accepted by the new scheme. However, legal advice taken advised that allegations referring to events that predate the 2017 Parliament could be considered only under any sanctions available at the time of the offence. Dame Laura’s report suggests that the House of Commons Commission look at this again. It has agreed to do so, and that will be taken forward.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The Leader of the House mentions the important fact that if anybody has allegations, those allegations will be judged against what was right at that time. However, surely it was always wrong to harass and bully people in this place. That is the standard against which we should treat everybody.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. That is a very helpful clarification because there has been some misunderstanding. Anybody with a historical allegation that predates July 2017 can and should come forward under the complaints and grievance procedure. The difference is that the behaviour code itself cannot be applied pre-July 2017. However, as my right hon. Friend points out, exactly correctly, most of the sorts of behaviours that people will expect to come forward to complain about would already have been captured under a pre-existing code of some sort—either the code of conduct for MPs or, indeed, employment contracts. I do encourage anybody with any complaint to come forward under the complaints procedure and not be put off by the fact that the behaviour code itself—this new creation of the House—applies only from July 2017. This is an incredibly important point, because there has been some misunderstanding about it. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for clarifying that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

I was not suggesting that this is like the civil service. I was just saying that if you are going through a process you need to be trained in it. I think that some people do not understand what sexism or racism is. They do not understand certain behaviours. If people at the top are expected to do it, everyone should do it. There is not an issue; half a day should be acceptable.

[Mrs Miller]

May I suggest that the hon. Lady takes a leaf out of the Canadian Government’s book? They put in place training for every Minister within weeks of the #MeToo campaign kicking off. Everybody did it and they actually thought it was a good thing to do.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Lady. I will come on to that later. That is a very good point.

The House of Commons Commission met on Wednesday 24 October 2018 to discuss the report’s recommendations and consider a way forward. The meeting was chaired by Jane McCall, the senior external member of the Commission. The task is falling to Jane McCall and Rima Makarem to oversee the work. Quite rightly, there will be no Member involvement. At this point, I want to thank Dame Janet Gaymer for her involvement and for all her work on the Commission. The Opposition welcome the decision by the Commission to accept the recommendations of the Cox report. The Commission is terminating the Valuing Others policy and has suspended operation of the Respect policy, recommending that the House terminate it as soon as possible.

Dame Laura’s report was critical of the independent complaints and grievance policy. The Commission recommends that the House amends the new independent complaints and grievance scheme to ensure that those House employees with complaints involving historical allegations can access the new scheme. The Commission rightly recommends that the House considers the most effective way to ensure that the process for determining complaints of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment brought by House staff against Members of Parliament is an entirely independent process in which Members of Parliament play no part. The Commission agreed not to wait for the six-month review of the independent complaints and grievance scheme, due to start in January 2019, but to identify a way to give those with historical complaints access to the scheme. Could the Leader provide the House with details on what work is already under way? She said that she will report quarterly. When will we get the first report?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the tenacity and commitment of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I do not think anybody has done more to try to deal with the situation we face. She is absolutely right that being a Member of this place is a privilege. It is like no other job. We represent our community, but we also speak truth to power. Today’s debate cannot fall shy of that.

The people who work here have a right to expect to be treated in accordance with the law, as they would be elsewhere. They want a safe workplace. The people I have worked with as a Member of Parliament, whether Clerks or anybody else, are an extraordinary bunch of people with the most extraordinary commitment to supporting the work of this place in whatever role they have. I very much welcome Dame Laura Cox’s report and I, too, pay tribute to the 200 or so people who gave evidence. Nobody but nobody today should even attempt to dismiss this report because of that enormous commitment from our members of staff.

Many staff have approached us as Members and welcomed the proposed changes, but there is a toxic lack of trust in management about whether the changes will actually come into effect. I will come on to the point about culture in a moment, but it is important to point out that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said, culture is something that we all have ownership of and all shape, but we shape it at a very high level. When it comes to shaping that culture for a working environment, staff are much more likely to see that coming from their direct management, and that direct management culture prevails for the vast majority of members of staff in this place. What has been most revealing about the Cox report is that, although there are of course issues about the behaviour of Members of Parliament, there are also significant issues about the behaviour of members of staff as well, and we should not be shy about discussing that.

Dame Laura Cox’s report talked about a culture of complacency, cover-up and denial that has allowed the abuse and harassment of staff to thrive for so long. I believe that that culture still pervades. We have only to look at the way in which the management here reacted to the “Newsnight” allegations in March: they were immediately dismissed as a “grotesque exaggeration”, yet the Cox report categorically exposes the fact that, far from an exaggeration, all those allegations are much more likely to be an accurate depiction of what is going on for too many people in this place. Indeed, the problems run deeper than just the abuse, to the dismissive way in which allegations are handled, and that has created a toxic lack of trust in senior management. Why does this matter? It matters because our staff have a right in law not to suffer discrimination and management have a duty in law to treat people correctly, and make sure that they are treated correctly. However, we also have a duty to make sure that we set the best of examples—indeed, so that we can attract an even more diverse cross-section of MPs to this place.

The current situation risks bringing the House of Commons and, thereby our democracy, into disrepute. The media revelations in the spring were a real wake-up call, but why did it take “Newsnight” to report this and to prompt Dame Laura Cox’s report? According to data given to the Cox inquiry, despite an increasing number of complaints under “Valuing Others”, there had been no findings and external investigations of bullying or harassment for the past four or five years. Why did management systems not pick this up? This is why, while the Leader of the House is right to talk about changes to process, the issue of culture and management is really important, too.

The laws passed in this Chamber are being wilfully ignored by the people tasked with running the House of Commons. The laws that we insist are enforced in the courts are not being enforced in this place. In particular, the House of Commons is subject to the law under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 on the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, as the regulator, is now threatening to take action against the House of Commons. That is a disgraceful situation for us to be in. How can we be in a situation where we are in breach of the laws that we have agreed on the Floor of the House? This is serious.

I very much welcome the clarifications from the Leader of the House on the work that she is doing to make sure that the independent complaints and grievance scheme can address historical allegations and that it will be clear to everybody that it does so; that it has built-in independence; and that things will not be delayed unnecessarily. However, Members cannot allow the Commission to cherry-pick from the Cox report. It has to be adopted in full if we are to get away from the disgraceful situation of the EHRC potentially intervening on this place.

The Cox report is absolutely clear that new processes are insufficient in their own right to bring about the culture change that we need. The report says:

“The House strategy…risks being thwarted without a change in the culture necessary to deliver it.”

Bullying and harassment continue to be regarded as a distraction from the real work of the House. Cox is absolutely explicit about the need for top officeholders to change—not in her recommendations, because of course, that was outside her terms of reference, but it is integral to the report—yet the Commission is silent on this. Paragraph 414 states:

“I find it difficult to envisage how the necessary changes can be successfully delivered, and the confidence of the staff restored, under the current senior…administration.”

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the only way to give confidence to future complainants is to ensure now that historical complaints are dealt with effectively and efficiently?

[Mrs Miller]

I think the Leader of the House has already said that that is the case.

Turning to my concluding remarks, although I see that I did not get an extra minute for the question asked by my hon. Friend—[Interruption.] To quote again from the report,

“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”.

The report could not be clearer. We have to make sure that there is senior management change in this place before we can make sure that the important process changes come into play. We have to make sure that the Commission is democratically accountable in the way that the Leader of the House has talked about. I believe that we also have to insulate the role of Speaker from dealing with these sorts of organisational issues, which are an immense distraction from his main role, which is to be in here presiding over impartial debate.

In summary, we really need to make sure that nobody here today can dismiss this report; that the debate is focused not just on process, but on making sure that we have the right leadership in place to fix the issues as we move forward; that we tackle the culture that has led to devastating criticism of the management of this place; and importantly, that we focus on how we can build back the trust of staff. That has to be the focus of today’s debate. We need to consider how we can make sure that the root cause of the cultural problems that we face are dealt with systematically not only by every Member of this House, but in the management of this place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

Yes, I agree. Some people may be well aware of what they are doing and of the impact of their behaviour, but some may not. It is time that we were brave enough to point that out to them, and I will mention that later.

The report is damning. It has the potential to be very damaging to the public’s trust in the procedures and legitimacy of this place and of us as elected Members—a trust that has already been thoroughly ravaged by the expenses scandal a few years ago. It is vital that we take this report seriously and treat all those who spoke out with the absolute respect that they deserve.

I agree with the Leader of the House that solving this problem is a non-negotiable course of action, and we have to act now before any further damage is done. As well as the horrific personal toll that abuse and harassment take on individuals, there is the wider impact, as this culture has led to the discouragement of women in politics. The gender balance in this Parliament is nowhere near good enough. Although we have a record level of female MPs in 2018, it is still less than a third of the total number elected. Many women I come across say, “Oh, I couldn’t do your job,” and they do so not because it is a fundamentally difficult job—some aspects are—and not always because of the hours or the distance, but because of how they perceive the culture of this place. They see Prime Minister’s questions as men in suits shouting at one another, and they see no place for themselves here as a result.

Dame Laura Cox’s report is particularly enlightening on the broader culture in which this situation has been able to fester. She describes it as

“an excessively hierarchical, ‘command and control’ and deferential culture, which has no place in any organisation in the 21^st century.”

This culture is our biggest issue as policy makers. It is no exaggeration to say it has wide-reaching detrimental effects on society. Unfortunately, trickle-down patriarchy has been much more effective than trickle-down economics has ever been.

There is gross over-representation in this place of a certain demographic—namely, upper-class, white men in suits. The report makes reference to certain public schools and Oxbridge universities as having a disproportionate influence. Of course, there are many among this demographic who are dedicated public servants whom I take no issue with and who work tirelessly for their constituents, and it is not my intention to single out any one person or party, but it is irrefutable that over-representation in one area leads to limited understanding of the experience of others.

I have spoken at length in this place about the terrible practice of retro-fitting women into policies. Women are not an afterthought to be tacked on to the decision-making process. That is how we have ended up with welfare reforms that make matters worse for abused women and immigration rules that discriminate, and it is why we have the two-child policy and the despicable rape clause—because these policies were not made to reflect the lived experiences of women.

It is really important to look at ways we can change the misogynistic culture in the House. Many women in my constituency and elsewhere would make fantastic representatives or members of staff, but without serious change they will not put themselves forward in a culture that does not respect their skills and experience. My former colleague Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, when she was elected to this place, was subject to woofing noises in this Chamber. If that is the example being set by Members, it reflects very badly on us all.

The Cox report described the experiences of female staff:

“Some women described always being asked to buy the coffee or make the tea, or take notes of meetings, for example, or being humiliated in front of colleagues by comments about why they needed to work or have a career if they had a husband, or ‘why do we need another woman in here, we already have two.’”

It is clear that the systems in place—the Valuing Others policy and the revised Respect policy—are not fit for purpose and need to be disregarded. We need to move on to something better.

A lot of the focus has been on the behaviour of MPs, but I want to be absolutely clear that this culture has deep roots. A lot of it is built on class hierarchy and misogyny, and bullying would appear to be rife throughout this institution. Those at the bottom of the wage scale in this place are those at most risk. I am deeply concerned about the caterers, the cleaners, the contractors—those people who are not as visible to the public as we are but who as a result are so much easier for the House to ignore. I want to ensure that their voices are heard in all future policies, and I want them to feel they can challenge unacceptable behaviour, regardless of who it comes from.

We need to recognise, too, that our own staff are vulnerable by dint of how they are employed. After all, how does someone challenge their employer directly and deal with something effectively within a very small team of staff? I have heard several times how MPs have treated their staff, and I think we all need to get a good deal braver in calling this out when we see it; not doing so allows it to continue. We need to stop making excuses for people. On page 141 of the report, Dame Laura highlights how unlikely we are to criticise our fellow MPs—the Leader of the House mentioned this, too, in the context of our procedures. We need to think about how we do this, without fear or favour and without risking our own personal relationships—a lot of us in politics grew up together and have those friendships and relationships.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. It is also part of our job to hold to account those managing this place. On behalf of the SNP, does she not find it very concerning that the Commission has not commented on the need for a complete management change here? What does she feel we need to do about that?

[Alison Thewliss]

The report makes it clear that there has to be change and that we need to look at our policies and procedures and make sure that everything is fit for purpose, and yes the report falls short.

[Mrs Miller]

The report does not fall short.

[Alison Thewliss]

Sorry, I mean the response to the report falls short—very short—in a number of aspects.

I do not have permission to name names, but I have heard testimony from a former member of staff in this place who was subjected to offensive sexist remarks by a more senior manager, used quite deliberately to undermine her position and confidence. She did not feel she could complain, and she did not want me to raise it further, but I fear that the person who made those comments will have thought little of them and will make them again to other women in his future career. As I say, if we do nothing, this culture grows and festers, and if people do not see their behaviour challenged, they believe that it is acceptable and that they can get away with anything.

Culture change would help participation in politics in the future, but it is of limited consolation to those who have suffered injustice in the past. Ours is often seen as rough-and-tumble profession with long and unforgiving hours and an immense workload, but that does not for one second excuse the unacceptable behaviour described by this inquiry, which is far reaching and fundamental. Discourse can be robust, but the allegations we are hearing about go far beyond what is acceptable during any normal disagreement.

Huge elements of this can be changed, and the Scottish Parliament, while not perfect, set itself up to avoid this kind of culture. From the outset, the Scottish Parliament made clear its commitment to inclusive and family friendly workplace practices, with key principles of accessibility, participation and equal opportunity. As the Leader of the House mentioned, best practice was drawn upon in its planning phase to ensure that the establishment of the new legislature could learn from the mistakes and successes of other legislatures, including this place. There was a firm understanding that Holyrood would not simply be a Westminster in the north.

Promoting a family friendly culture and work environment has been a key priority of the Scottish Parliament, and that is reflected in its sitting hours finishing at 5 pm, voting being fixed at a set time so that staff and MPs do not have to stay late into the evening, unlike in this place, where sitting hours can vary hugely. We also have in this building a pervasive culture of alcohol—this has been missing somewhat from the debate thus far. We have receptions at lunchtime serving drinks and people encouraged to hang around in bars while we wait for late-night votes, and this breeds a culture where we are not behaving as professionals in this building. We are then forced to spend a ridiculous amount of time in crowded voting lobbies, which is unpleasant and unsafe, particularly when some Members have been drinking for a good part of the day.

A lot of the reporting on this has been done in dramatic tabloid language, and the culture in the past has been to cover it up and pretend that it is all fine, which has led directly to the situation today where we worry too much about the reputation of the House, rather than the people who work within it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). She made what I thought was a rather hard-hitting speech, with much of which I agreed.

One of the themes that have emerged from most of the contributions today is culture. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) was the first to mention the “culture” word, and he was absolutely right to do so. Like others—including, I think, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central—the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), talked about the merits of looking at other systems, not just in the United Kingdom but around the world, to see how they work. I would like to extend that. The focus seemed to be on other legislatures or on public bodies, but I think we should be more ambitious and look at some of the best practice in the organisations in the private sector that have changed their culture.

Let me throw one example into the mix. One of the best culture changes that I saw took place during my time at Asda, when Archie Norman was the chief executive and Allan Leighton was his deputy. They transformed the strongly hierarchical culture in what had been a very “control and command” kind of business when they took over. They revolutionised the way in which managers treated their colleagues, and ensured that everyone was considered to have equal value within the business, whatever their role might be. I think that there would be a great deal of merit in persuading people like Archie Norman and Allan Leighton to come to Parliament and explain how they changed the culture of companies such as Asda. What was done there was a massive feat in itself, and Asda became one of the top businesses in the country in which to work, according to one of the annual polls carried out by The Sunday Times.

Let me stress, in the limited time available to me, that this is a very important issue and we all have a responsibility to try to put things right. Our staff, whoever they are, deserve to be treated properly and with respect. Indeed, why would people who want to get the most out of their staff not treat them properly and with respect? Any sensible manager would want to do that anyway. However, I do not think it helpful to try to use this issue as some kind of witch hunt, or as an attempt to settle scores with the Speaker of the House of Commons. I think that that has featured far too often in some of the contributions to debates on this subject. Whatever problems there are in the culture of the House, they almost certainly predate the Speaker’s time in the Chair. This is a long-standing issue in the House, and it is absolutely wrong to lay the blame for it at the door of the Speaker.

I have no qualms about criticising the Speaker. As it happens, I was one of those who put their names to the motion of no confidence in the previous Speaker, and I did not vote for the current Speaker to be in his position. At the time of his election, I spent an hour explaining to him all the reasons why I was not going to vote for him, although it was, strictly speaking, a secret ballot. So I have no qualms about, if necessary, telling people why I think that they are unsuitable for that particular role. However, I do not think it either fair or appropriate to use what is a long-standing issue in this place as a way of settling old scores with the Speaker. It is largely people who, like me, did not vote for him in the first place who are using this as a way to say that they still do not want him to be here. This is just a convenient stick with which to beat him. Such action trivialises what is a serious issue for everyone in the House, and I hope that we will caution against it. We all have a role to play in ensuring that we get the culture right.

It is clear to all of us that the culture in the House is not always right. Let us get in people who have expertise in changing cultures in organisations where staff are put at the front and centre. Let us do something positive as a result of the challenge that we face, and use the report to deliver that positive change. Please let us not use this simply as a way to do something negative—to settle scores with someone with whose present position some Members were never reconciled in the first place. I did not vote for the Speaker, but I recognise that it is not the Speaker who is responsible for the problems.

[Mrs Miller]

I did not intend to intervene, but my hon. Friend must recognise that the report contained some criticism. Is he just dismissing that? I hope that he would not characterise my comments as those of “one of the usual suspects”.

[Philip Davies]

I know that my right hon. Friend has been outspoken on that particular issue, but she is certainly not at the forefront of my mind. [Laughter.] She has very considered opinions, and I appreciate that. I am not oblivious to it. My point is that whoever had happened to be the Speaker at the time when the report was written, the same issues would have been raised in it. I do not think that it constitutes a specific criticism of this individual Speaker. This is a much deeper and more widespread problem than that. Anyone who thinks that these issues have only arisen since the current Speaker took his position knows, deep down, that that really is not the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to say a few words on behalf of the House of Commons Commission. I also thank Dame Laura Cox for her report on the bullying and harassment of Commons staff.

The Commission recognises that it has a statutory responsibility for the employment of House staff, but too often has failed in its duty to provide a workplace free from bullying and harassment. The report described an institutional failure to address a problem that has undermined the legitimacy and authority of the House. As others have said, bullying and harassment have no place in the House or in any other area of public life. The Commission is determined to take immediate steps to rectify past mistakes and offer robust protection and support to all who work here.

As Members will know, the Commission met on Wednesday 24 October to discuss the report’s recommendations and consider a way forward. Members of the Commission, including the Clerk of the House and the director general, were unanimous in recognising that it is time for a change, and agreed to the three fundamental recommendations in Dame Laura’s report. This decision was reinforced at a further meeting on Monday 29 October.

We agreed to terminate the Valuing Others policy and the Respect policy, to expand the new independent complaints and grievance scheme to enable House employees with historic allegations to access it—although we have heard the Leader of the House point out that that is available to them already—and to ensure that the process for determining complaints of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment brought by House staff against Members of Parliament is an entirely independent process in which Members play no part. Work will start on this immediately with the Leader of the House and with input from the Chair of the Standards Committee and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—the widest scheme possible, perhaps in the way the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was asking for earlier.

The Commission is also committed to preventing any further bullying and harassment of, and sexual misconduct towards, staff, and has directed the Commons Executive Board to produce an action plan, in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. This will be taken forward under the auspices of the external members of the Commission, drawing on independent and external advice.

Since the publication of the Dame Laura Cox inquiry report, the Commons Executive Board has been leading events with House of Commons staff to hear their reactions. Judging by their comments at these meetings, the mood of many staff members is a mix of anger at past events, disappointment at the failure of the House to deal with them adequately, and concern about whether lasting change can happen. This is perhaps an example of the toxic lack of trust that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) referred to.

The right hon. Lady also referred to section 149 of the public sector equality duty and said that it applies to the House. There may be an argument about whether that is the case, but clearly the House would always want to observe that even if there was not a statutory requirement for it to do so. The right hon. Lady might be interested to know that the Clerk of the House is due to meet the Equality and Human Rights Commission shortly to discuss this matter.

[Mrs Miller]

I gently remind the right hon. Gentleman that the EHRC has put in writing very clearly that the House of Commons is subject to the public sector equality duty. It is the regulator; it made that decision, not the House of Commons.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that intervention, and it is on the record.

There is concern, too, that these issues might be used as an opportunity to score political points, perhaps losing sight of the fact that this is about real people who are hurt and let down by their place of work and how their complaints were handled.

What is clear is that fine words are not enough: change must follow, and swiftly. As we move forward, the Commission has confidence that the new independent complaints and grievance scheme will offer far greater protection for staff members than ever before. The behaviour code, for example, is a set of inarguable standards by which we must all abide, regardless of rank, power or allegiance. The code has now been adopted by both Houses, and no one may regard themselves as exempt from these standards. However, as many Members have said, there is a deeper issue beyond policies and processes: this is about the culture of the House, especially in relation to deference, hierarchy and the abuse of power. This theme resurfaces repeatedly. We must collectively strive to change fundamentally a culture which has tolerated such abuses.

The sentiment in the Commission is to see swift action, but action that must be effective at securing lasting and permanent change. An action plan focused on addressing the cultural fault-lines that persist in dividing the Commons community is being developed with external input and individual staff input seen as critical. This plan will be informed by the voices of staff, who have signalled their impatience to see concrete actions—actions that will, once and for all, address the serious issues that undermine the quality of their working environment and make the change lasting and permanent.

But it would be foolish and foolhardy to suggest that an immediate action plan implemented over months will in itself change a culture that has developed over many, many decades. Lasting and sustainable culture change requires a movement. We all have a role to play. The bullying of House staff is perpetrated by both Members and by other House staff; these are equally unacceptable but will require different remedies. Soon, there will be decisions and choices to be made by this House, and I hope that all Members will recognise the responsibility they have and the role they can play in changing the culture of the Commons for the better and for good.

Every member of the parliamentary community has a right to feel safe and respected. The Dame Laura Cox inquiry report clearly shows that this is not the case. This must, and will, change, and that change starts now.

Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because this is an issue that he has pursued. He and I have discussed this a number of times, and he is gravely concerned about the allegations of bad behaviour that has taken place and a bad culture that has existed in this place for far too long. I pay tribute to him for all the work that he has done in this area.

This is a matter for the House, and as Leader of the House I will do everything in my power to stamp out all forms of bullying and harassment. I would say to all hon. Members—those who attempted to turn a blind eye or allowed it to go on under their view—that as we all know, for evil to succeed good men need only do nothing.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Dame Laura Cox says in her inquiry report that

“many consider that there is still no genuine understanding that things need to change.”

She says that a shocking culture of fear and deference is driven right from the top of the House of Commons—behaviour that we simply would not tolerate elsewhere. The new grievance procedure is welcome, and my right hon. Friend is to be applauded for what she has done to put that in place, but it is not enough, and Dame Laura says that. She makes it clear that there is a need for a culture change, too, which directly requires a change in the management of the House of Commons.

As we have just heard, very senior management are the people who will decide what happens next as a result of the report. Will the Leader of the House explain how the brave staff who have spoken out can be reassured that action will be taken, because the House of Commons has a duty to lead by example—to be an exemplar employer. The report makes it clear that there needs to be a complete change in leadership at the most senior level, including you, Mr Speaker, as chief officer, if we are, in Dame Laura’s words, to “‘press the reset button’”.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend cares a great deal about these issues. Again, she has been closely involved in the progress of the new complaints procedure and has had a hand in shaping its direction. She will know that all those involved in the working and steering groups across the political parties throughout the House worked tirelessly to reach an arrangement in which we would be in a position to change the culture of Parliament. She is exactly right to highlight the fact that that is what is needed. I am sure that the hon. Members for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), and for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), and all those involved in the working group will take the same view as I do that we have to change the culture of this place. It is absolutely vital that we do that. It is not going to happen overnight, and we have to continue to lean in and accept the recommendations in Dame Laura’s report and do everything that we can to ensure that this place mends its ways and becomes not just an exemplar but a role model for other Parliaments around the world so that they can learn from our experiences.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I pay enormous tribute to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I think that nobody would contradict me if I said that without her skill, implementing this new procedure would simply not have happened. It is easy for all of us to call for action and say, “Something should be done,” but it takes a particular skill to actually deliver that, and I pay tribute to her for having dealt with all the factions that have been at play and bringing us to this successful conclusion today.

It is important that we lead by example in this place and that we act, because people have a right to feel safe wherever they work, whether that is in Parliament or anywhere. I pay tribute to the individuals, particularly the women, who have come forward and had the courage to speak out when many hundreds before them have not. My heart goes out to those who may be listening to today’s debate who have experienced sexual harassment or bullying in this place before these procedures have come forward. I hope that they can find some comfort in the fact that we are dealing with this in such a professional way. Parliament is overwhelmingly a good place to work, but there are instances when that is not the case. It is important for us and we have a responsibility to deal with that.

Although this is in a much broader context, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you do not mind my touching on the work of the Women and Equalities Committee. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), my fellow Committee member, will know—she is in the Chamber—we are looking at the issue of sexual harassment at work and the importance of recognising that the issues that we find challenging here in Parliament are part of a much wider context. It is a little disappointing that although back in 2007, organisations such as the Equal Opportunities Commission were looking at sexual harassment in work—it was one of its top-priority agenda items—the Equality and Human Rights Commission did not pick this up when it was established. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will know that the International Labour Organisation is bringing forward an international convention against sexual harassment at work. It began work on that in 2015. These are not new issues; they have been around for many, many years. I am glad that Parliament is leading the way and I hope that others will pick up some of the recommendations that we are putting forward today and, indeed, will be working on this themselves.

The Leader of the House is absolutely right to say that this is the beginning of a process. We need to keep some questions in mind as we move forward to reviews of the process in the next few months and years. It is important that we keep a close eye on the independence of the process from political parties and, in particular, the Whips. This process needs to be independent of that very intricate network that we have in this place.

I would also like to talk about confidentiality. All the evidence that was given to our Select Committee suggests that confidentiality is absolutely vital. The Leader of the House is entirely right to protect that, because the confidentiality of complainants is what matters. This is nothing to do with a lack of transparency regarding the behaviour of Members of Parliament. If we do not embrace that, this system will fail. It is important that others understand that, including perhaps those who have not looked at this issue in quite the detail that my right hon. Friend has. We are protecting the confidentiality of the complainant.

I would like to ask the Leader of the House a couple of questions. She touched on the issue of complaints about behaviour that predate the 2017 cut-off. This is vital. We ask companies and other organisations to deal with behaviour that is historical, yet it can feel as though this process does not take events that predate 2017 as seriously as those that post-date 2017. I understand the complexities of doing that, but will she reassurance me that any complaints that predate 2017 are dealt with in the same way with regard to confidentiality as those that are more recent? That is really important.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend can also think about ways in which we can give more advice to Members about how they deal with issues as they arise. That is another issue with which the Select Committee is having to deal. If an individual Member, or indeed a member of staff, witnesses sexual harassment or bullying behaviour, is that person obliged to report it, and if not, why not? We need to give Members that important advice, because we cannot allow bystanders simply to watch things going on without acting. This is a live issue. The Leader of the House may wish to read the Select Committee’s report when it is published next Wednesday—it deals with tackling the issue in the professions, where people are obviously obliged to behave in the right way.

In March, along with other Members, I attended a session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. There I met a member of the community delegation, who told us that members of the Canadian Cabinet were receiving training on sexual harassment that week. I should like some reassurance from my right hon. Friend that she can use her position to ensure that the same happens here, and happens speedily, right to the top of our organisation.

How we deal with bullying and sexual harassment really matters. This new process will build people’s confidence in the system, and as a result we may see an increasing number of complaints. That is not a sign that our organisation is in trouble. It is completely the opposite: it is a sign that the organisation is getting to grips with a problem, and gaining the confidence of its employees by talking about these issues more openly than has ever been the case in the past.

Again, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend. This is an extraordinary step forward for Parliament, and I hope that the Select Committee will be able to look at the reviews of the system as and when they are published.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I want to add my voice to the many people who have spoken already and to the many voices who have called me since they met with the Leader of the House and saw the proposals—the voices of the many women and men involved who brought us to this point—in saying what a positive step forwards this is. As someone who has been a naysayer all the way through the process, I thought that it would never be good enough—there would have to be a million tick boxes to satisfy me—but what is outlined in this very detailed and quite long document is to be commended, and I feel confident that people will and should bring cases forward.

It will be a massive pleasure for me to no longer be the referral system for victims of violence in this building. I have been exhausted by the stories that I have heard since the situation started to break in October last year. I think that I am up to around 50 complaints about Members from a variety of people from different political parties and others who work in and around politics. It will be delightful to hand those cases over.

It would be wrong of me to say, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has already outlined, that I do not have concerns about historical cases, not least because most of the cases that caused us to do anything will not necessarily be able to go through this system. I have deep trust in the Leader of the House and in her desire to make this right and to make sure that wherever possible, regardless of when a situation may have happened, there are still ways for this system to look after, care for and respond to victims and to give them independent advice on how to manoeuvre around the system.

It has always been a part of our code of conduct, whether in 1864 or today, that we must not bring this House into disrepute, which is an enormously broad term. I would argue, and I do not think it is up for debate, that sexually harassing our staff brings this House into disrepute. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron) rightly said that we should all have great faith in the credentials of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as well as in her attitude and tone. The way she works with Members of Parliament should fill people with hope for the system, and she has plenty of scope to take complaints from people who may not fall within the 2017 issue raised by this specific report, but there are still things in the code of conduct that have definitely been broken in many of the cases I have heard, so I look forward to the review.

It is brilliant that we have a six-month review, and it is a new way of doing things around here that, after we sign a piece paper on day one, we do not just believe that nothing has to change and that everything will be perfect. This system will absolutely be tested by the first person who goes through it.

[Mrs Miller]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern about how the amendment might incite idle speculation about the identity of victims, which we know could be devastating to those individuals?