Houses of Parliament (Family-friendliness)

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on securing this important debate. I stand with her against the abuse that was directed towards her recently and praise her courage in standing up to bullies. She is a great example.

As part of being more family-friendly, MPs should be able to be good employers to their staff who have roles as family members and carers. It is vital for MPs to be good employers and to set an example, but the opportunity to do that is being denied to us in a number of ways. MPs’ staff take on a heavy workload with many stresses to support our work. Sometimes they are as stressed as we are, and they are also husbands, wives, daughters, sons and parents, with the responsibilities and occasional emergencies associated with that. A couple of years ago a staff member of mine suddenly needed compassionate or carer’s leave because of a family medical emergency. Of course she took the leave—I told her to take it—but as she was a vital member of my team dealing with case work, I needed to cover her role. I was appalled to learn from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority that our staff contracts do not cover compassionate or caring leave.

MPs should be able to be good employers and to offer leave to carers. As my hon. Friend said, how can we talk to big business about what it should do if we do not hold ourselves up as a good example? At a recent meeting on carer’s leave, I heard of the good example set by Centrica, which won a best for carers and eldercare award from Carers UK for its excellent policies. It rightly believes that supporting carers reduces turnover and cuts recruitment and training costs. It also has an employee-led carers network. MPs should be able to support the carers among their staff, and IPSA’s policy should allow for carer’s leave. We used to be able to give such leave before IPSA changed that—the old contracts allowed it.

I hope that the House will raise that matter with IPSA and ensure that we can offer what a caring employer should be able to do for its staff who are carers. I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to include that issue alongside the many others that she has been asked to think about, and to help to ensure that it is put to IPSA.

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[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), my Select Committee colleague and fellow feminist, for securing this debate.

This building—this institution—was not built with women or families in mind. I direct Members’ attention to the Lady Members’ Room, to which I was introduced in my first week here. It appears to be a place with comfortable chairs that harks back to the days when women were expected to iron and adorn themselves with doilies—lovely, I am sure, but I am quite confident that that would not be seen in the men’s rooms.

This House ought to consider the reality that there are currently more male MPs than there have ever been female MPs. That is an astounding statistic and things cannot continue like this. What does that say to women and girls? What will the gradual effect be on the idea of women in powerful positions in the world? We must educate women and girls, and also men and boys, and show that this place is representative of society as a whole, but we can do that only when it becomes so.

[Barbara Keeley]

One morning I found an SNP MP ironing in the Lady Members’ Room, so the hon. Lady is quite right.