Cox Report: Implementation

Debate between Maria Miller and Tom Brake

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[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—

Parliament as a Workplace

Debate between Maria Miller and Tom Brake

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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?

Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Debate between Maria Miller and Tom Brake

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[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.