Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend does a huge amount in this place to support particularly women, but also all equality issues, and I commend her for that and will be delighted to work with her.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I thank the Leader of the House for her statement. As a member of the working group, I want first to commend the right hon. Lady for her leadership on this issue and the diligent way that she has gone about trying to build consensus. She is right that we have made solid progress, but it is profoundly disappointing that we have been unable to deliver our report this side of Christmas, as anticipated and as expected by those in this House. This delay has absolutely nothing to do with the Leader of the House, who has personally gone the extra mile to ensure good progress is made. But by failing to deliver the report, we have let everybody in the House down. We have particularly let down the staff of the House, who were expecting speedy progress, and I am appalled if there is any suggestion that this might be getting punted into the long grass.

We have an excellent report ready to go, which has been agreed by practically all the parties in the House and has been agreed by all staff representatives. The hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) want that point to be stressed. The working group has spent hours agonising over this report, and I join the Leader of the House in thanking the experts on sexual harassment who, with their extensive experience, have helped to design a report that covers all the concerns raised by hon. Members and staff.

I sincerely hope that, if there are parties in this House that may have issues about the process of delivering this report, they are quickly and expeditiously dealt with. This is far too important an issue to be lost in party political machinery. May I therefore ask the Leader of the House to get people around the table as quickly as possible, and make sure this report is delivered so we can start to protect the people in this House?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I should like to thank the hon. Gentleman for his tireless work. He has been absolutely dedicated to making progress on this, and I commend him for that. I share his enthusiasm for speedy further progress. All colleagues will be aware of the need for careful consultation and consideration, but we need to make fast progress.