Business of the House
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mel Stride
I am sure that the hon. Lady will have taken the opportunity to raise that matter in Transport questions. If not, she has raised it now and I have no doubt that the Secretary of State will shortly be aware of that. What I would say is that this Government have invested more in rail than at any time since the Victorian era.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
If someone were caught speeding, the police would have two weeks to notify them and six months to bring proceedings, but that person could bring a complaint against the police officer at any time and the investigation could take years to resolve. Could we have a debate on limiting the time for police complaint investigations to provide certainty for the complainant and for serving police officers?
Mel Stride
The whole issue of speeding has been raised with me in different ways and from across the House in the short time that I have been Leader of the House, so it appears that it is probably an area on which further debate is well overdue. I have just been passed a note to tell me that my hon. Friend’s father served 29 years with the West Midlands police; we thank him for his service.
Bullying and Harassment of MPs’ Parliamentary Staff
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I shall speak very briefly, because so many of the points made during last month’s debate on the Cox report apply to this debate, and so many further points have been made so effectively by Members on both sides of the House today.
As the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said earlier, many of Gemma White’s findings, and the evidence with which she was presented, were simultaneously shocking and, sadly, unsurprising. It is with sadness that we must reflect on that, and consider what measures we can take to ensure that those who work for us, those who work with us, and those who support us and allow us to perform our functions as representatives here in Parliament can be sure that they will be treated with respect and dignity, and with the basic decency that we would expect from any other employer in the country.
The basic issue in the Gemma White report is the balance to be struck in terms of the role of individual MPs: the extent to which we are independent Members and employers and the extent to which we are part of a collective. Of course we are effectively 650 small businesses in this place, each operating our own shop, but like all small businesses our offices work best when they work as a team, and well performing teams are built on a strong culture of respect. It is very rare for an effective team to be founded on fear; a team is rarely strengthened by abuse and bullying. That principle clearly applies in our own offices.
I have previously worked for Members of Parliament, although in constituency rather than here in the Palace, so I have seen and know about many of the demands from both sides of that employer-employee relationship. I know the flexibility that is offered so freely by many of our staff, and it is offered so freely because they usually see themselves and us as part of a team—as engaged in a common endeavour, working in the same direction for the benefit of constituents and seeking to achieve the same things. In a good environment that is working properly staff are happy to be flexible. I know I was very happy to go well beyond what I was contracted to do; I never felt pressured to do work, including the kind of work referred to by Gemma White of a personal nature in terms of making sure MPs’ wider parliamentary activities and life are functioning smoothly. But we must also be mindful that, as other Members have said, there is a risk that the flexibility that we value so much can be taken advantage of, and not always consciously. It would be far too easy for us to get into a routine whereby we start to expect things of our staff that are clearly well beyond what they are employed to do and what it is reasonable to expect.
It is important that Members of Parliament are autonomous and, as Gemma White recognises, there is a need for MPs’ office structures to differ to reflect the needs of each different Member, but that should be an autonomy within common standards. We are autonomous, but we are not separate. We as Members cannot allow ourselves to become effectively chiefs of our own fiefdoms—judge, jury and executioner of our own parliamentary office. It would clearly be wrong and entirely unacceptable if behaviour that we would not stand for if any of our constituents came to us complaining about their own employer was allowed to happen here, under our noses and in our own offices and those of our colleagues, on very little basis other than that that is the way things have always been in Parliament. While respecting the autonomy of parliamentary offices, as Gemma White’s report does, we need to ensure that the common standards and the common framework for protecting our employees’ rights, decency and dignity at work are protected, whoever they happen to work for. The only way in which we can move on from the cases raised in this report is to embrace its recommendations and implement them. We need to establish those common standards and practices across the House, regardless of a Member’s or staff member’s length of service, apparent seniority or junior position.
Like those in other public sector workplaces, we need to ensure that there is a properly resourced HR department that can support our staff as well as supporting us as employers. That would go a long way towards providing the support that our teams need and deserve. It would provide an impartial eye, so that any difficulties could be corrected before they became serious problems. Everyone in all parts of the House should come behind this report and invest all the time and effort needed to ensure that we end the culture of harassment and bullying that has clearly been common in a small number of, but still too many, cases in parliamentary offices in recent years. As I have said, we would expect any employer in our constituencies to follow these standards of decency. We need to set that example and to lead.
Cox Report: Implementation
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), for not being able to be present at the start of her speech. I was able to catch up with her remarks, and I think that she spoke on behalf of all of us in the House.
I thank Dame Laura Cox for leading an extremely important inquiry, and for producing such a comprehensive report containing such sensible and achievable recommendations. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), the former Leader of the House, for her work in beginning to implement those recommendations. She was clearly right when she highlighted the need for a significant culture change in this place. I also pay tribute to her for her acknowledgement that it will not happen overnight, but it needs to happen, and to happen without delay. The time that has already passed has been too long for those who work in this building, who work with us and who support us, but who may be subject to behaviour that would be clearly unacceptable not only in this Parliament, but in any other workplace.
Bullying is vile and horrid. Unfortunately, it appears to be becoming more and more of an issue—a visible issue—in wider society. Across society, there seems to be, in many cases, not only a breakdown in what might previously have been thought of as common courtesies, but a breakdown in basic decency. It is a question of fundamental values: how we should treat each other, and what is the correct way in which to work with not just those to whom we are close, but those with whom we have professional contact.
As Members of Parliament, we clearly have a particular role in setting an example of—I was going to say “good behaviour”, but behaviour that is acceptable. We should not be expecting thanks or congratulations merely for not doing things that would be rightly condemned if they were done by anyone in any role in almost any business, any school, or any workplace in any other organisation anywhere in our country.
When we talk about bullying in the context of schoolchildren, we refer to the devastating effect that it has on their mental health and development, but bullying is an issue that affects people at all stages of life, regardless of their backgrounds, and it is increasingly affecting people’s mental health. Technology and social media seem to be increasing the prevalence of bullying, but it is even more noticeable that the reach of that bullying and abuse continues to expand so that, in many instances, victims cannot feel safe, whether in the workplace or at home. If a person cannot feel safe from being abused by someone who—as other Members have said—has an improper power advantage and is abusing that imbalance in the relationship, how can that person be happy and continue to function on not only a professional level but a personal level? So, yes, we in this place must be setting an example to people in the wider country, not showing people how to belittle and undermine others.
As has been said, politics is a very peculiar environment. It clearly attracts people with high passions and people who feel very strongly about their beliefs. It arouses those passions. People get hot under the collar. It makes people’s blood boil. People rarely end up agreeing with each other. But high passions and strongly held views cannot be an excuse for unacceptable bullying and abusive behaviour. It is not acceptable for my children at home and it is not acceptable for those of us who claim to represent our constituents here in the mother of all Parliaments.
If we are to resolve the issue of bullying and harassment in Parliament, the recommendations in Dame Laura’s report must be embraced. The report needs to be implemented wholeheartedly and we must enact a seismic shift in culture. We must develop that culture of respect that we speak of for our society. We must embody a culture of respect in Parliament because everybody who works in Parliament—whether Members of Parliament, staff, Officers of the House, contractors, journalists or anyone else who has reason to work in this place—has a right to be able to go about that work and their lives without fear of abuse or risk of bullying and harassment.
In many ways, we see a parallel now with the stories around the expenses scandal a decade ago, very different though those issues are. Both cases threaten to completely undermine what remaining respect and confidence people have in our democratic structures, institutions and political system. In both cases, it is simply unacceptable to try to appeal to some peculiar culture in Parliament, saying “People outside just don’t understand what it’s like. It’s always been that way.” Whether or not it has always been that way, if it should not be that way, we have to make sure it is not that way, and that means we need to take action now and to make sure that processes are in place so that the victims or potential victims of this behaviour can be protected and those who are guilty of this unacceptable behaviour can be held to account.
As with the expenses scandal, it is clearly inappropriate for Members of Parliament to think that they can mark their own homework. That is why the independent nature of this body is so important. That is such an important recommendation from Dame Laura, so I hope that the Commission will ensure it is implemented swiftly.
This has been a painful and unpleasant experience for Parliament as an institution, but it has been a far more painful and unpleasant experience for those who have been the victims of bullying and harassment here, and whether that is from other MPs or from staff should not matter; they should have that level of protection. And it has been painful, unpleasant and unacceptable regardless of whether it happened before or after this new code of conduct came into place. That is why it is essential that the issues of historical abuse and bullying are properly addressed. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) talked about retrospective regulation, and we must be wary of the risk of retrospective regulation and rules coming in that hold people to a standard they could not reasonably have expected to be held to, but this is not the situation on the whole: most of these cases do not involve some obscure administrative or procedural requirement that we are expecting people to sign up to that we would not have expected them to meet a decade ago. In almost all cases, this is about basic standards of decency, where, regardless of whether the code of conduct was in force at the time, it is perfectly reasonable to expect Members to have abided by those standards. Those who did not should expect to answer for that, and whether what happened was 18 months ago, three years ago or longer, those who have been the victims of abuse, where the evidence is there to support those allegations, should have the right to have their claims heard and, where appropriate, there may be arguments for redress.
We really need these recommendations, including for an independent body and for an effective system to handle historical cases, to be implemented without further unnecessary delay. I know that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House feels strongly about these issues, as his predecessor did. We all call on the House of Commons Commission to do everything possible to make sure that the changes are introduced, implemented and enforced, so that we can all come behind the report and the recommendations made by Dame Laura, endorsed by the House and so badly needed by so many people who work for us in the Houses of Parliament.
Business of the House
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Given the pressures on today’s Order Paper to which the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) referred, might the Leader of the House find an opportunity—the earliest opportunity—for a general debate on beer taxation and pubs?
Andrea Leadsom
I believe that my hon. Friend chairs the all-party parliamentary beer group, so I well understand his disappointment at the decision to postpone that debate. I assure him that I will seek another opportunity for a debate on the subject.
Proxy Voting
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I commend the Leader of the House and the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) for pursuing this proposal. I also commend the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who is not with us but will perhaps be the first gainer from it.
This proposal is overdue. Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) who wants radical change quickly, I am an incremental reformer of the House because reform of the House has unexpected consequences. This proposal, however, is overdue. It is overdue because pairing is obsolete. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) made plain, in today’s politics being absent is not good enough. Whatever the real reasons, the public will not forgive us for not being there, so it is absolutely necessary that we put this measure in place and keep it after the year is up. I have no doubt that that will be the outcome.
There will be issues, some of which my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) raised. His concerns are not always popular in the House, but some of them are real. Quorum will be a serious issue on Fridays and so on, so we must deal with that. I agree entirely with his amendment on miscarriage. That should go nem con, as it were. He raised the issues of serious illness, irrespective of who the Member is, of being a primary carer for somebody who is seriously ill, and of the death of a close relative. The public will see it as necessary that we address those issues to maintain the fairness of this proposal. It is important that, in the public eye, we maintain the view that this is a fair and sensible proposal. I say to the Leader of the House that, although there will be a one-year review, I hope we will look at those issues before the year is up.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Like my right hon. Friend, I strongly support these proposals. To support the immediate point he is making, two years ago today is the day that I went into hospital, and as some Members know, I was in a coma for 11 days, during which time I missed the Second Reading of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, which attracted the kind of criticism that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) referred to. Although it is difficult to know quite how I could have appointed a proxy in those circumstances, does my right hon. Friend agree that we must ensure that, when people are ruled out of participating in parliamentary affairs, they can still represent their constituents?
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is important, in this context, that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater—that is a terrible metaphor, now that I think about it. The simple truth is that we must retain our ability to do our job in a way that the public accept is fair, sensible and effective.
Speaker’s Statement
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The hon. Lady has made her point with force and in her own way, and I thank her for doing so; she is perfectly in order, and it is now on the record.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The guidance that you issued to Members earlier in the week drew attention to both the need for temperate language and the provisions around misogynistic language as part of the respect policy. If these rules do not apply to the Leader of the Opposition, what protection can Members’ staff and staff of the House expect where behaviour is not broadcast live on international television?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The simple answer is that the rules apply to every right hon. and hon. Member of the House. That is the factual answer. I can do nothing other than provide the factual answer, but I thank him for what he has said.
Business of the House
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I think the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) is sporting a kind of England tie, and we should hear from the fellow. His tie is very natty indeed.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Britain has a record number of outstanding breweries, including four in my constituency and the excellent Hook Norton Brewery in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), whom I am meeting this afternoon. Might we have time for a debate on the opportunities after Brexit to restructure beer duty in order to support not only our excellent brewers, but our vital community pubs?
Andrea Leadsom
I know my hon. Friend chairs the all-party group on beer, which promotes great UK beers. I have a number of brewers in my constituency who have had the pleasure of bringing a barrel to the Strangers’ Bar here in Parliament. We are all big supporters of brewers in our own areas, and he is right to point out the opportunities Brexit provides. These beers are superb UK products, and we need to do everything we can to promote the excellent and rising exports of British food and drink as we leave the EU.
Business of the House
Mike Wood Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I must declare an interest, as my eldest son is about to study for his finals and now has no lecturers. At a very personal level, I cannot say that I support innocent students, who have paid their fees and worked very hard, being punished for the resolution of this challenge. Talks are ongoing, and the Universities Minister is engaging with Universities UK and the University and College Union to make it clear to all parties that there is a need to find a solution that avoids disruption to students.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Under this Government, the UK is leading international efforts to tackle tax avoidance. Can we have a debate on the impact that tax avoidance has on our vital public services and on what more can be done to make sure that everybody pays their fair share?
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. He will be pleased, as I am, that the Government have a strong record on tackling tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance. Since 2010, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has secured and protected over £175 billion in additional tax revenues through its compliance activities—more than the entire annual budget of the NHS. The UK’s tax gap is now down to 6%—its lowest level ever, and one of the lowest in the world.
Government Policy on the Proceedings of the House
Mike Wood Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Pete Wishart
I think we have heard enough from the right hon. Gentleman. He took up about 25 minutes of the available time so I shall move on, if he does not mind.
We on the SNP Benches have a little experience of minority government: we are in our second parliamentary session as a minority Government. We had a minority Government with just two Members more than the second party, and now we are just two short of a majority. In each case we have tended to try to function as a minority Government, respecting the view that we do not have a majority and trying to work in consensus and partnership with other parties. The exercise we are doing around the budget is an example of how things can be done in a minority Parliament.
I mentioned fracking: it is important that we come back to the Scottish Parliament on that with another view. On other issues on which we are defeated, we will consult further and try to address the concerns. That is how we govern as a minority Government. I am happy to talk things through with the Leader of the House to help her to understand better. If she wants to come to the SNP, we can give her some lessons about running a minority Government. If she is having difficulty with it, which it seems she is, she can come and have a chat with us. I will not break the confidence of our meeting, as she did to me at the most recent business questions. She can come and have a chat and perhaps we can talk through some of the issues.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
As we have heard, it has been 12 months since the Scottish Government were defeated, and they are still at the consultation stage, whereas in the four weeks since the House expressed a view on the two motions in question, the Government have announced a policy change on the level of next year’s tuition fees, and they have announced different terms of reference for the public pay review bodies. The Government have done exactly what the hon. Gentleman is asking of them in terms of considering and reviewing, and I am sure that those matters will come back to the House.
Pete Wishart
I do not think the hon. Gentleman has been listening. I am not making any criticism of the Government—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I am not! I am trying to give them some advice about how to do things and I am trying to get their minority status into their head. I am trying to help them to deal with that, so I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman listened to what I have said. It is good that they are reviewing things—that is what minority Governments do, and they should continue—but they also have to allow Opposition day debates to conclude and then vote on them and express an opinion. It is important that our constituents hear us in Parliament deciding on the important issues. It is important that they know our views, and the only way they are going to find out how we think about a particular issue or subject is if we vote on it. That is the only way they can determine it.
I do not know whether the Government intend not to vote on any further Opposition day motions, but I am not particularly interested in what Paul Waugh has to say in the Huffington Post on a particular day. I would like to hear it from the Leader of the House. Perhaps we can tempt her to say definitively, yes or no, whether she intends the Government to vote on Opposition day motions at some point. I will give her the chance to say whether it will be an option for the Government. [Interruption.] She is shaking her head, or—
Business of the House
Mike Wood Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
As I said to the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George), we are absolutely committed to universal credit as a means of supporting more people to get into work. That must be a good thing for those individuals, for our economy and for our society. However, the hon. Members for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and for High Peak have raised an important point. Ministers are very aware of the issue, and we will be listening carefully to what people have to say.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Can the Leader of the House tell us how many Members contributed to the two Opposition day debates yesterday? Is she satisfied that both sides of the House fully engaged with those debates?