Members of Parliament: Risk-based Exclusion

Debate between Stella Creasy and Christopher Chope

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think there is some common ground among contributors to this debate. It is not innocence or guilt that should be in question—this is about our responsibilities. It is about the probability of harm or further harm when sufficient evidence has come to light to merit the involvement of the police. The Leader of the House said that she was here to listen, so let me offer what I believe is probably a counterbalance to some of what has been said today. It is critical to recognise that we are talking about a risk-based exclusion process; this is not about the person who has been accused. We have a responsibility to act because this is about the risk of harm to people in their jobs and in their lives as part of their connection to Parliament.

In parts of this debate, it has almost seemed as if we have forgotten the victims, the potential victims and the risk of harm. That is to our discredit as a House, because we face such a major challenge, and we must be honest about that. I can reassure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I will abide by what you said at the start of this debate, but, frankly, it is terrifying to me that you had to ask us not to talk about individual cases. We are all living in an environment where we know how pressing it is to resolve this matter, because we know of the number of cases involved.

I recognise the passion that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) brings to this debate, but I must be honest: I do not think that arguing that somebody who is on sex offenders register can also be an MP is quite the attack on these proposals that he thinks it is. If anything, it shows that, for so long, this place has lived by rules that no other workplace—frankly, no other planet—would think were reasonable. He says that he is biased towards the accused. Well, that should automatically rule him out of this process, in the same way it would if somebody were biased towards the victims. This is about risk. It is about how we interpret risk and our responsibility in this regard.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) is no longer in his place. I listened patiently to what he said and I was very sympathetic to the thoughtful way that he approached this matter, but he kept saying that we need to look at this again, that we need to kick the can down the road one more time. We have been doing that in this place for years—that is what the cacophony of different organisations reflects. Every single time that we kick this issue into the long grass, say that it is too complicated and put it into a box because we cannot deal with it, our constituents think two things: “Hang on, in my workplace we had to deal with this” and “What planet are they on?”

It was 2017 when the #MeToo movement gave people the courage to come forward in this place with what was, frankly, the tip of the iceberg of the challenge we face. It is now seven years later, and we still have not made the progress that we would all like to see.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) and I were talking about the importance of the presumption of innocence before being proved guilty. That is why I say that I have a bias in favour of the accused. The accused is innocent until proven guilty, and the hon. Lady seems sometimes to forget that.

[Stella Creasy]

My concern is the concept of bias, because it means that the judgments that the hon. Member makes are not value-free. We need a process that people can have confidence in and that will act. In the last seven years we have seen time and again that what little reputation this place had has been shredded as a result of our failure to have those processes. It is not about the accused but about the hon. Gentleman’s concept of bias. He could not hear someone’s case without fear or favour if he were on a jury, but that is not what this is about.

The hon. Gentleman is concerned about vetting and barring; I used to work for the Scouts, where it was pretty standard to have vetting, barring and DBS checking for our volunteers. It was not seen as an unusual or difficult thing to do. I suspect that most people in daily life would be fairly shocked that Members of Parliament do not have that. They would expect a level of professionalism and safeguarding because of the kinds of cases that we might deal with and the kinds of people who might come and seek our help, and that would not be unreasonable.

The hon. Member needs to take seriously the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) about just how long it takes for cases to be heard and for the police to gather evidence when someone is arrested. We do not construct the system in a vacuum, so we must take account of the fact that, as the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) pointed out, once someone is arrested, they will know that a complaint has been made. That is when the clock starts ticking. We know that this has been going on. In January, the Fawcett Society said that 69% of women MPs and 50% of all MPs—I presume men, too—had witnessed sexist behaviour and sexual harassment in Parliament. They had seen behaviour they thought was inappropriate in a workplace in the last five years.

The permanent swamp of complaints that we are living in means that the concerns are not without foundation. It is up to us all to recognise not just the individual examples but the collective challenge that we face to tackle that culture. It was not just in 2017 that people came forward; in 2018, Laura Cox had an independent review; in 2018, the Women and Equalities Committee made recommendations; in 2019, Gemma White produced a report and Naomi Ellenbogen produced a report for the Lords. I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) that it cannot be just about MPs but must be about this place as a whole. The reality of daily life as a Member of Parliament is that they will interact with everyone on the estate, including their staff and the people who come and visit. It is not an unusual concept in any other workplace, but somehow we think we are different, and things are too complicated to make progress. Little wonder the cases still come; little wonder the Deputy Speaker has to issue such a warning.

My worry is that we will deter people from coming forward. We will be unable to address these issues if we do not get the process right, and we will deter people from coming forward if they have to wait until charge. They might continue to be in a workplace with someone they have made a complaint about. The police will have deemed it serious enough to arrest that person and to come to the House authorities about them, yet they still have to be in contact with that person every single day if they want to do their job. We must trust that the police would not come forward with information were they not concerned that we needed to address a risk.

As the people who make the safeguarding legislation, we cannot say, “Sorry guv, this is all too complicated for us, so in this place we won’t have the rules that we ask of other places.” It is right that we do not ask our Whips, who have to do an incredibly difficult job in managing us all at the best of times. As someone who spends too much time around toddlers, I do not envy the Whips, because it feels like a harder job sometimes.

We cannot have a system that is immune to the impact on political parties. Again, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda was right to talk about the interactions that exist and the need to have a process that people feel is fair and firm. Patronage and power are infused throughout this place, and that does not stop when someone is arrested. Indeed, the pressure on the person who has come forward becomes even greater. It is our responsibility to address that.

The Leader of the House said that she is looking to hear views, but let me make a simple plea: why do we not do what we ask of other workplaces in the legislation that we ourselves have put in place? Sexual harassment at work is specifically outlawed as a form of unlawful discrimination by the Equality Act 2010. This is not about narrow points of process—I pay tribute to the Clerks who have worked on the report—but about us doing what we expect of other workplaces. Rather than having multiple processes where people can get clogged in the system and no one has any confidence about who is doing what to tackle an issue, we should have one simple process in which we can interact. It is not so complicated to have interaction between the political parties, the ICGS and this House, if we will it.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

To what extent is the hon. Lady sympathetic to the plight of those who are on the receiving end of false accusations? My understanding is that she herself has been on the receiving end of vexatious allegations that related to social services and her children. From that, she must feel the enormity of the burden that such false accusations bring upon somebody’s shoulders. Does she not have any sympathy for other Members of Parliament in that regard?

[Stella Creasy]

I think the hon. Gentleman has missed the point I was trying to make earlier: it is not about sympathy or bias, but about trying to have a systematic process that allows us to act as a House. That matters because every Member of Parliament has responsibilities as an employer. Under the Equalities Act 2010, we have a duty of care to our staff and to the people who work with us here, to make sure we are creating a safe environment. Whatever our private experiences, the issue is how we collectively uphold that. Frankly, if the hon. Gentleman does not do that and uphold his role in safeguarding, then my staff are at risk, as well as other members of staff. We get this right together, or we do not get it right at all.

We can get it right if we choose to, and if we follow the requirements put on any other workplace. Employers have a duty of care and are legally liable for sexual harassment in the workplace if they have not taken reasonable steps to prevent it. We make that a requirement for any business or public agency in our constituencies, which is why our constituents will be watching the debate agog that we cannot get our heads around that idea.

There are no minimum requirements: all employers are expected to have an anti-harassment policy and monitoring of its implementation, and clear processes for reporting harassment, protecting the victims and taking action if harassment occurs. That is why the cacophony of different organisations is a challenge, because it makes it hard for people to see how we are implementing the requirements that we ask of other workplaces. It is also why the risk-based exclusion policy should form part of that process. It should show that we take sexual harassment and serious violence seriously enough to have a process in place, so that if the worst comes to the worst, we can act.

In order to uphold those legal requirements, I would argue that the policy should cover all those who have a pass and all areas in which their status as a passholder means they are in a position of power. Again, we cannot put constituencies into the “too difficult” box if somebody claiming to represent Parliament might present a risk of harm. In reality, people will ask, “What did you do when you knew there was a challenge?” That is what the process is about. We cannot be good employers, upholding our duty of care, if we do not hold each other to account.

We need a process where if a disclosure is made—not tittle-tattle or gossip, but a disclosure—there are formal responsibilities. In any other workplace, that would be standard. If someone reported something to a senior manager, there would be an expectation that they would act on it. Indeed, a senior manager might say, “Do not tell me something if you do not wish me to act.” Frankly, I do not blame people who have gone to the press because they have seen the failures in our process; I blame us for not acting more quickly to resolve the situation. I hope, appreciate and understand the need to have the debate today and I am pleased we will have a motion before the summer recess, but I recognise that it cannot be just about MPs. It has to be about everybody who has a pass and has that status within Parliament.

None of this will change the culture, which we all know needs to change, whereby power corrupts and people use it to abuse. Most do not, but we know some do and consistently will without a system that tackles that. This is not about MPs marking their own homework. It is right that we bring in a third-party challenge from lay members, who are people who have to deal with the issue in their day-to-day workplaces. It is also right that we use the proxy voting scheme to deal with some of the issues that arise. As somebody who has been part of a proxy voting scheme, I argue that it is not the reason why we get abuse from people.

Safeguarding does not have to mean no socialising. It is perfectly reasonable for people to be able to go for a drink together, through the long hours that we do in this place, without that being inappropriate, but the fact that some Members are inappropriate means that we need to act and that we need a speedy resolution process. However, that speedy resolution also means resolving the issues involving multiple bodies. There is a general election on the horizon, and I would wager that most female MPs will say that the first question they are asked by other people—especially women—who are thinking about standing is “Is it safe?” They will ask, “Is it safe for my family? Will I receive abuse? What sort of behaviour will I have to deal with? Will it be like being around a bunch of toddlers?” I suspect that most of us will give an answer that we would not really want to defend.

We can change this. The public only have the chance to elect Members every five years, and perhaps none of us will there by the time these proposals are implemented, but we all have a responsibility to those whose voices are not being heard in our political process, because they look at this place and think we are all complicit. I hope that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and I can find common cause in wanting to make it possible, in our democracy, for every voice to be heard. If this is a barrier, we can address it, but let us address it soon, because for too long those voices have not been heard, and for too long the consequences for the House and for democracy have been seen.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Christopher Chope

Report stage
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise as the person who tabled the original amendments in Committee that prefigured new clause 1, to recognise this as the best of Parliament. When we come together to write legislation we believe will make a positive and constructive difference to people, listening to each other’s concerns and recognising the positive pare that scrutiny can play in the process, it can bear fruits that we can all support. I welcome and support new clause 1 as a recognition that there was a concern and an issue with the concept of reasonableness being at the heart of public order offences. Let me clarify what I mean by that.

Let me clarify what I mean by that: this legislation is about harassment, and other forms of harassment legislation have always had within them a test that someone’s behaviour cannot be considered reasonable if general opinion would be that their behaviour was unreasonable. In layman’s terms, when it comes to the harassment that we are talking about, if someone were being followed down the street and shouted at—particularly about their sex or presumed sex—even if that person were to claim it was reasonable, a magistrate should be able to say that it was patently not. The person responsible should not be able to evade prosecution under this legislation. However, this Bill was originally based on public order offences legislation, which does not include that distinction about whether somebody ought to know that their behaviour was unreasonable.

It is very welcome that the Government have listened and agreed to put out guidance to consider that point. I hope that setting out what I believe that guidance should cover will be a helpful guide to the Government, and perhaps will answer the genuine queries from the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) about whether there can be involvement in it. For many of us, getting this issue right goes to the heart of how this legislation will deliver the effective freedom that we hope for particularly, but not exclusively, for women, as it is women who are overwhelmingly reporting the kind of incidents that we are talking about in this legislation.

One of the challenges will be the initial decision as to whether someone has committed an offence. Many of us are extremely used to the idea that the challenge is our reaction to someone’s provocation, rather than the provocation. I hope that new clause 1 will recognise that, consistent with other forms of harassment legislation, a defendant arguing that their behaviour is reasonable should not be a reason not to proceed with a charge. I want to be clear about that, because I understand why people would be concerned. No one is suggesting that the reasonableness defence should not remain; we are arguing that it should for the courts or the magistrates to decide whether the behaviour was reasonable, rather than the defendant. In setting out the guidance, I hope that the Government will give weight to the idea that the presentation of a reasonableness defence, which is quite frequent in harassment cases but not necessarily in public order offences, should not deter the CPS or the police from seeking to proceed with a prosecution. In that sense, it would be consistent with the guidance on the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 or the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

In reference to some of the amendments tabled, agree with the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) about the importance of consistency in the law. I add my support to his argument about retaining the provision on presumed sex within the Bill. The most important thing about this legislation is that it turns the lens from the behaviour of victims—women in particular, because although this legislation covers both men and women, and male and female perpetrators, women will particularly benefit from our clarifying that street-based harassment is unacceptable and is illegal already, and therefore carries a higher penalty if it is targeted in this way. Too often, the victim’s behaviour has been called into question in decisions whether to prosecute. It important that the legislation is written in such a way to turn our attention back to the perpetrator. Were we to have loopholes, whether around reasonableness or the status of the victim, we could inadvertently undermine the capacity of the police and the CPS to secure that outcome.

I recognise the attempts from the hon. Member for Christchurch to test the legislation. If he read the scrutiny of the legislation in Committee, he would appreciate that, because that is where new clause 1 has derived from. I hope he will understand that many of us feel that the changes he suggests would undermine the Bill, because it would not be as clear that our sole concern is the people who harass, intimidate and abuse other people in public because they are focused on the sex or presumed sex of the victim. The important message that we want to send by passing this legislation is that the existing crimes should not be diminished, ignored and seen as part of everyday life, and that we should address them.

That is what I wanted to say, as the person who originally drafted the amendment that has led to new clause 1. I also recognise the cross-party working to get this legislation right. I hope that those who had concerns about new clause 1 or other parts of the legislation will see the benefit of having had these discussions, and that the Bill will benefit many of our constituents as a result.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who I know takes a great interest in this particular subject. I am delighted that she included in her remarks a reference to the fact that this legislation applies equally to men who are victims as it does to women who are victims.

Support for Children and Families: Covid-19

Debate between Stella Creasy and Christopher Chope

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship Sir Christopher, as it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger). Unlike with Caesar, I do not come to bury him but to praise many of the things that he has to say—and just for the avoidance of doubt, I am not on Valium while doing it. He and I agree on much of what he has just said. We agree that it is actually about the support for families.

It is always interesting to hear the hon. Member’s perorations about etymological foundations. I come with a much more practical message this morning, because we know that our families are in crisis. The question is—and he and I would agree on this—what can we practically do, as communities and as the state, to support them? We know that supporting families reaps rewards, not just for those families, but for the entire communities that they live in.

I agree with what the hon. Member says about the couples’ penalty and not penalising people for how they live, but I would gently encourage him to look at the penalising that currently goes on for those families who find themselves in the most awful situation: where one family member dies, but, because the family have decided that they do not wish to use marriage as a basis for their relationship, their children are pushed into poverty because, under our legislation, those children are not entitled to the bereavement support payment. If he wants to not just talk the talk but walk the walk, I am sure he will join me in raising that with Ministers.

I come this morning to talk about the defensive ring that the hon. Member has already mentioned in terms of rising evictions and debt, and what we can do now that the defensive ring that he talks about is about to end, particularly when we know that we are about to face a tsunami of unemployment in this country.

It has become increasingly clear over the last couple of months that within the family, it is the mums that are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. Before a child has even been born in this country in the last couple of months, we have had women who have gone to have scans on their own and found out their child would not live; they have had to give birth on their own and health visitors have been cancelled without anybody being told. As the hon. Member for Devizes mentioned, domestic violence has risen. Now, the evidence is before us that it is mums who are bearing the brunt of that approaching tsunami of unemployment. If, as the hon. Member says, he believes that both sides of the family should be able to work and come together as a family, I hope he will join me in calling for urgent action to tackle the reasons why it is mums who are much more likely to have been furloughed and are therefore much more likely to face redundancy. Indeed, the fantastic organisation, which I am sure he is a supporter of, Pregnant Then Screwed has seen a 450% increase in calls to their helpline during the pandemic. Little wonder.

The protections that many of us took for granted preventing women from being made redundant while pregnant have disintegrated in the past couple of months. We know that it is women who have been doing the working from home in both senses. While the hon. Member was cycling, I am sure that his wife was looking after their three children and trying to home school them. That is not an unusual experience.

The evidence that we have had shows that overwhelmingly it has been women who have been managing children in the home and trying to work from home. Their employers push them to be furloughed to be able to manage that situation, and then they find themselves at the front of the queue to be let go. That is why we know that during lockdown, for every hour of uninterrupted work done by mothers, fathers had three uninterrupted hours of work, according to the research. We know that it is particularly women who are suffering because our childcare and schooling facilities were closed.

What is worrying me now—and I hope that the Minister will tell us they have an action plan for this—is that two thirds of women who want to return to work cannot do so because there is not any childcare. It is a very simple equation: when you have to socially distance three-year-olds—my goodness, I would not wish that on anybody—then clearly there are fewer places, which means that fewer people can put their children into childcare and so an already broken system in this country is now clattering to a halt.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that mothers were 47% more likely that fathers to have permanently lost their job or quit during the pandemic, and are 14% more likely to have been furloughed. Pregnant Then Screwed research of 20,000 mothers show that 15% of them had either already been made redundant or expected to be made redundant. It is a generational rollback of mothers in the workplace and of workplaces being able to work for mothers.

We already know from data published on 15 September by the Office for National Statistics that the numbers of redundancies have increased by 45% this quarter. Of those affected by that increase, 79% were women. The high-level data that looks at men versus women does not capture the particular phenomenon we are seeing of the tsunami of unemployment coming towards mothers. It is particularly in the industries that mums work in that we have seen higher levels of redundancies and high levels of closures— hospitalities, retail jobs—and it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that it takes political will to recognise that mums are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. That is why it is so important that we keep that universal credit uplift: we already know that more and more families are falling into poverty.

If the hon. Member wants, as I do, mothers to be able to work and fathers to be able to work, and for them to balance family life as they choose, then we have to make it possible for them to do that. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that withdrawing that uplift would bring 700,000 more people—including 300,000 more children—into poverty. If parents cannot work because they cannot put their children into childcare, then we need to be able to support those families, or destitution will become even more widespread than it already is. Child poverty has already increased by 600,000 since this Government came to administration, meaning that 4.2 million children are living below the breadline. That was before covid hit.

There are some solutions. In the time left, I want to be clear about that. First and foremost, we need urgent investment in childcare in this country to keep those nurseries and maintained providers open that are desperately needed so that parents can get back to work if they choose, so that mums can make that choice. We need to keep that universal credit uplift. We also need to simplify the tax support we give to childcare. I agree with the hon. Member for Devizes that the state can play an active hand—not a dead hand—in helping it work. Frankly, the money is there. Last year, £664 million worth of tax-free childcare was not claimed, amounting to £1.7 billion over the last three years. Imagine if we could put that into childcare settings, and help get families back to being able to organise their lives the way they want. There is £64 million in the local authority schools budget. The money is there. The need is there. The poverty is there. The question is whether the political will is there. I venture that the hon. Member for Devizes and I share a common concern to make sure that the political will is there, and to do what our suffragette sisters and fathers would ask of us: deeds, not just words.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Before calling the next speaker, I will say that 13 other Members wish to be called and there are 52 minutes left. By my calculations, self-discipline of about four minutes per speech should enable everybody to get a hearing.