Proxy Voting

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

As Government Chief Whip, I had responsibility for managing the pairing system, so it is a matter of some regret to me to listen to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), as I have done previously, and talk about her experiences and how she and other Members lost confidence in the pairing system. I would rather that confidence had been regained, but given that it has clearly not been, these proposals are welcome and I support them. I also welcome what the hon. Lady and others said about extending the provisions to cover shared parental leave. We have legislated for that arrangement for those outside the House; it seems to me that, if we are making provision inside the House, we should do so on that basis.

My final point is a note of caution. Perhaps this is to be built into the review mechanism, but transparency cuts both ways. I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) said about the criticism she received for not appearing to be doing her job when she was quite properly absent from the House, but I would caution that pairing can sometimes be valuable in allowing Members to be absent for reasons they do not wish to be transparent about. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) explaining his absences. If a Member is ill, they may wish to be transparent about it, but often Members cannot be here because of family circumstances—children, parents or other family members—and we should be conscious of the need to enable them to be absent in a way that does not force either them or their family members to put into the public domain the reasons for their absence.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

It is important to stress that no one has to take a proxy vote; it will always be voluntary, and Members could continue with the pairing system. Like other Members, when I was on maternity leave, the campaigning group 38 Degrees emailed my constituents and said, “Where was Rachel Reeves?” The answer was I was on maternity leave with a very young baby, but it did not bother to check its facts. Many of my constituents thought I had just not bothered to turn up.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady’s experience just confirms what I have thought for many years about 38 Degrees and the way it campaigns against Members. I have always found that robust pushback and setting out the facts to my constituents have been very helpful. I take her point seriously. I would caution only that as we look at the results of the pilot, we should bear in mind that there are many circumstances in which colleagues may need to be absent, sometimes for reasons that they do not wish to share, and that no one in any other workplace would ever have to make public. I want us to ensure that we do not implement a system that makes it more difficult for people to keep private things that should remain private.

Just in practical terms, if the pairing system is to work, we need enough colleagues who are not here to be available to pair with. The hon. Lady was right to say that no one would be forced to use the proxy voting system, but if we end up with proxy voting it will become increasingly difficult for pairing to proceed, and colleagues may therefore find that they are forced to use the system in circumstances where they do not wish to draw attention to the fact that they are not able to be here. That is the only cautionary note that I wanted to add to the debate. I am very supportive of the specific proposals.

Proxy Voting

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I do not wish to promote sibling rivalry, so I call Rachel Reeves.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I am the older sister, yet I have been called second today—we will be having words later, Mr Speaker.

I too thank the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) for asking this urgent question, and the Leader of the House for answering it. May I just check the procedure for Monday? Is the intention to table a motion that we can vote on, or will it be introduced at the end of the day, in which case there is a risk that one Member will shout “Object” and stop the proposal going through? I know that the Leader of the House is trying to do the right thing, but we are all keen to ensure that we have proxy voting in place by the end of Monday.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Having had three kids, I have discovered a very useful piece of information, which I wish now to share with the hon. Lady: the oldest child makes the rules, the second child is the reason the rules are needed, and to the third child the rules do not apply. She is absolutely right to raise this issue. We have debated proxy voting a number of times and want to get on with it, so the plan is to bring it forward for the House to nod through. She is therefore quite right that if somebody objects, I will need to look at further measures, which I will do in very short order. This is the quickest way to get it through. Following that, as you have said, Mr Speaker, you will ensure that the detailed procedures are ready immediately thereafter. That will then need to be signed off by you, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Scottish National party’s Westminster team. Once those signatures have been received, it will be possible for proxy voting to take place on the next sitting day.

Business of the House

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I have already said, the Government are under a statutory obligation, under section 13(1)(B) of the EU withdrawal Act, to have the withdrawal agreement approved by a motion in this House. In these circumstances, the business of the House motion agreed on 4 December would need to be updated through a further business motion. [Interruption.] If the hon. Lady would allow, I will answer the question. The Government have never disputed the fact that any motion to approve the deal is amendable. That has not changed.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

Following on from the question from the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), can the Leader of the House be clear? The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) proposed an amendment, which was passed by this House, that meant that the motion under the withdrawal Act would be amendable. When they bring back the business motion, whenever that is, will the Government ensure that the amendment is incorporated into that business motion so that it is amendable by the House?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), the Government have never disputed the fact that any motion to approve the deal is amendable. That has not changed. That means that, when the vote comes back to the House, the business of the House motion agreed on 4 December would need to be updated through a further business motion, and that in itself would be amendable.

Baby Leave for Members of Parliament

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for her powerful speech and for all the work that she has done over the years on these important issues. I am responsible for two of the 17 babies who have been born since 2010. When my first child was born almost five years ago, one of the campaigning organisations that email constituents about votes emailed my constituents to say that I had not bothered to turn up to a vote. I would very much have liked to turn up to vote on all the issues, but with a very young baby it simply was not possible. That needs to be rectified as well, because in the minds of constituents we are not here and not representing them, but we are doing very important work at home.

[Ms Harman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That chimes very much with what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) says. As a mother of four, she thinks that

“just because women having babies are based in their constituencies in the weeks and months following giving birth that should not mean that their constituents are not represented by their MP casting their vote.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith) had a new son, Bobby James, who was only 35 years old when we had a crucial vote on Brexit—[Hon. Members: “Days!”] Sorry. He was only 35 hours old when we had the crucial Brexit vote. My hon. Friend’s wife, Nikki, had an early induction because her pregnancy was high-risk. He says that with the fixed vote coming up, and his wife in labour, his fundamental role as an MP was pitted against his fundamental role as a man, dad and husband in support of who he describes as his amazing wife. He says it brought an edge to the delivery room that was frankly unhealthy, and that it is surely

“easier to move Parliament than hold back the majestic and existential forces of the arrival of new life.”

Let us show that we can manage to move Parliament.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said, the trouble is that, even when an MP is paired, people outside the House do not understand pairing. They just see that their MP has not voted. Social media campaigns, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) mentioned, criticise MPs who have not voted on important issues, unaware that they are paired because of childbirth. They get criticised in newspapers that run voting league tables. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who we all know is one of the most hyperactive MPs in the House, featured at number two in The Sun’s list of Britain’s laziest MPs. We cannot go on like this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) for calling this important debate. It is important for me to be here, because I had a baby a year and a half ago as a sitting MP. I will not go into details about what happened to my insides, but I will talk a little about the impact of pregnancy and birth.

I will not go into the exact details, but I will say that I had a 40-hour long labour which resulted in an emergency C-section, after which I caught an infection and so did the baby. The Royal Free Hospital in my constituency, which is amazing, looked after us for nine days, but even in those nine days while I was in the hospital bed I had to handle emails and sign things off from my office simply because there was no one else to do it and I could not nominate someone to take care of crucial matters—and certain crucial matters did come up, which I will elaborate on in a minute.

I am not describing these details because I want sympathy; I am describing them because before I had a child I had never quite realised the physical impact pregnancy has on the body. I was quite old when my younger sister was born, so I had been around babies and children, but I still did not realise quite what would happen to my body going through a 40-hour ordeal and an emergency C-section. I could not move from the bed and had to ask everyone for help, which was definitely not easy, as I am used to doing things for myself.

I represent a marginal seat—the lady I took over from had won the seat by only 42 votes, and I had won by only just over 1,000 votes—and did not feel that I could neglect my constituents, so I came back to work very quickly. As a result, because my body had not recovered, I developed a serious case of mastitis. Anyone who has had that will know what it does to their body. When I went to the GP, they made it very clear that I had got it because I was overworked and exhausted and because I had gone back to work very early.

During that time, in my sleep-deprived state, I knew that I had to do something, so I tabled an early-day motion asking whether we could change the way the voting system worked. I was getting emails saying, “Why didn’t you turned up for this vote?” even during the six weeks that I had taken off following my emergency C-section. I was being asked why I had not voted in a certain way or why I had not turned up for a certain meeting. Anyone who knows the constituents of Hampstead and Kilburn will know that they look up their Member’s voting record to see whether they have turned up to vote or not. In tabling the early-day motion, I wanted to make it clear that we have to change the voting system, and this is the time to do it, now that more women Members of Parliament are having children than ever before.

I also want to point out how our position here in Parliament lags behind that of other countries in the world. In Sweden, Denmark and Slovenia, Members of Parliament may be granted leave of up to 12 months in the case of pregnancy, childbirth or adoption. The situation is the same in Estonia, Finland and Latvia. In Belgium, Portugal, Croatia and the Netherlands, there is no formal maternity leave, but a Member of the House of Representatives who is on maternity leave can be replaced by another Member from the same political group, so that they are not penalised for their absence.

The fact that our attitude to parental leave lags behind those countries is compounded by our attitude to our parliamentary voting system. Scotland, India, Ireland, Israel and the European Union—to name but a few—all have electronic voting, which is not only time efficient but accommodating for members.

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. Does she agree that, by the time we are done with this, we should match if not better the best Parliaments in the world? Also, may I just say that, physically, having the second child is harder?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend for that note of confidence. I absolutely agree with what she says: we have to do even better if we want to make Parliament a more welcoming place for female representatives and if we want to act in the way that my constituency Labour party did when I stood for election. One after another, its members stated categorically that they wanted more women in Parliament and wanted an all-women shortlist. The constituency had had a female MP for 23 years in the form of Glenda Jackson, and they wanted another one. That is what we should all be encouraging in the House of Commons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We will take it as a rhetorical question.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

3. If he will take steps to ensure that no major Government policy announcements are made when the House is not sitting.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

The Government make major policy announcements to the House in the first instance when it is sitting. However, the demands of modern government make it impossible to avoid making any announcements at all when the House is not sitting.

[Rachel Reeves]

The Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), made substantial policy announcements on Friday that could just as easily have been made on Thursday or today. What assurances can the Leader of the House give us that until Parliament returns in September there will be no announcements that can wait, especially given that it is returning early in September? The House needs to be able to scrutinise legislation properly.

[Sir George Young]

It is precisely because the Government want to keep the House informed that there are 32 written ministerial statements on the Order Paper today. We have brought forward announcements that might otherwise have been made in August in order to keep the House fully in the picture. I am not aware that any substantial policy announcements are to be made during August.