Tributes to the Speaker’s Chaplain
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Mr Speaker, I hope you will not mind if I start by briefly expressing my thanks to you for your service in the Chair and wishing you all the very best for the future. You have been a source of encouragement and sound advice to many of us in the Scottish National party, and I have been particularly grateful for your support in my role as Chief Whip. Of course, for Scottish National party Members, staying at Westminster is not a long-term ambition, but the role that you have played and the reforms that you have introduced have certainly made our time here more tolerable.
As others have said, Mr Speaker, one of your most significant legacies and early decisions is the appointment of Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin as your chaplain. I remember as a younger, keener but casual observer of business in this place reading some of the coverage and criticisms of that appointment at that time, but, as you have previously said, Mr Speaker, those critics were wrong in every single respect.
From the start, SNP Members here have found that Rose brings a presence of welcome, comfort and reassurance. There are some who would question the value or relevance of starting the parliamentary day with Prayers, but of course participation is voluntary and, as the Leader of the House alluded to, I do not think that anyone, believer or non-believer, who has had the privilege of experiencing the prayers led by the Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin could doubt their value. No matter how tense the day may be, no matter how important or portentous the business to come, her tone and eloquence at the start of each day have a levelling effect and remind us all that ultimately we are all equal—for believers, we are equal in the sight of God.
Prayers, especially in recent times, have provided some memorable moments, even if they have not always been visible to the public. The Rose’s choice of texts often matches with uncanny ability the occasion of the day and hits the right note. At the start of our proceedings on the historic Saturday sitting a couple of weeks ago, she began with St Paul:
“Do not be anxious”.
That was the moment that broke the ice, and chuckling could be heard across the Chamber.
By leading those prayers, Rose has ministered to the House collectively. Her presence in the Under Gallery, literally praying for us as we have taken part in some of the biggest and most historic votes of recent years, has not gone unnoticed. She has also ministered to many Members individually as a chaplain, especially at times when tragedy has struck Parliament and the House. She has also built strong ecumenical relations, forging, in particular, a firm bond with Canon Pat Browne He may officially be titled the Roman Catholic duty priest to the Houses of Parliament, but to the Catholic community in Westminster—and, I believe, to many others—he too is undoubtedly a chaplain, and early-day motion 71 congratulates him on his 10 years of service. He invited Rose to address us at mass in the crypt yesterday—it is, after all, the chapel of her chaplaincy—and her reflection was once again on that admonition to not be anxious but to trust in God. We hope that that is what she will do as she takes on the role of Bishop of Dover. Once again she is breaking down barriers and conventions, as she has done here in Westminster, and as you have done, Mr Speaker, in appointing her.
We will warmly welcome, in due course, Canon Tricia Hillas. She brings considerable experience of promoting diversity, inclusion and ecumenism, all of which means that we can have every confidence in her as a worthy successor to Rose.
Rose said to us last night that, although she was leaving this place, she would carry us in her heart and in her prayers. She can be assured that we will do the same for her, in ours. This morning, at Prayers, she invoked the priestly blessing from the Book of Numbers:
” The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you”.
Perhaps, in return, we can invoke the old Irish blessing:
“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. I hope that observers of our proceedings understand the enormous affection and esteem in which we all hold Rose. I just want to mention that a constituent of mine, and a former constituent, are in the Public Gallery: Julie Kincade, my constituent, and former councillor Sue Polhill, who was one of my constituents until relatively recently. In this session, I hope that they are seeing the House at its best.
I want also to mention, because I think it is apposite and there is a piquancy about it, that the Church of England’s diversity adviser, Elizabeth Henry, who has helped to deliver real beneficial and progressive change, is with us as well. Elizabeth, you have been the most enormous asset to the Church, but I want to thank you publicly. You have been a great support in relation to Rose—you were an early champion of hers, knowing her quality—and you greatly assisted my colleagues and me only the other day in the recruitment of her successor. I salute the work that you do, the passion that you share, the experience that you bring, and the counsel that you offer. They are very precious.
Business of the House
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Government expect and want to leave the EU at 11 o’clock next Thursday. Is the Leader of the House making provision for the House to sit on the Friday to deal with the inevitable disastrous consequences?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It would be more suitable to make provision for a celebrational party.
Business of the House
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Bailiwick is an excellent word. The Leader of the House and I share an affection for it.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I am glad that the Leader of the House has been able to contain himself on the Front Bench right the way through all these questions. Unlike the Father of the House, I fully intend to vote against the Bill on Second Reading and, for that matter, on Third Reading. Having not had the courtesy of sight of a draft programme motion through the usual channels, I wonder whether the Leader of the House can tell us whether the Third Reading debate will have protected time, so that those of us who do want to make every effort to stop Brexit on behalf of our constituents who voted against it will have that opportunity?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Time will be made for Third Reading in the normal way according to the programme motion, which the House will have a chance to vote on tomorrow.
Business of the House
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
It is fortuitous that the Minister is sitting next to me, so the hon. Lady’s point has been made. [Interruption.] He chunters at me that he is working hard on this. It is a very serious matter that is important to our whole economy. I reiterate that there will be an opportunity to debate the economy in the Queen’s Speech early next week, which may be another good opportunity to raise this matter.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Has the confidence and supply arrangement that the Government reached with the Democratic Unionist party in 2017 expired? Has a new one been agreed? And when does the Leader of the House expect the next Queen’s Speech to take place?
Business of the House
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
This follows on very much from what was said by the shadow Leader of the House. The rights of British nationals in prison abroad were the subject of a Westminster Hall debate in March 2018, and I echo the response of the then Minister for Asia and the Pacific, who said:
“The Government are proud to uphold a long tradition of offering British nationals a comprehensive, responsive consular service.”—[Official Report, 13 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 306WH.]
Consular officials in Prague have been assisting Mr Sandhu since his arrest in January 2019, and have remained in regular contact with his family in the UK throughout. I am unfortunately not able to go into the details of Mr Sandhu’s case, but I understand that officials are responding to my hon. Friend’s specific questions, which he has also raised with Her Majesty’s ambassador in Prague. Let me point him in the direction of the Foreign Office’s consular hotline to see what more support can be provided—it is worth reminding Members that there is a hotline for their exclusive use if there are consular problems—and if he will write to me, I will pass his concerns to the appropriate Minister.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is disappointing that Prorogation is going ahead before Prime Minister’s Question Time can take place next week. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and I have been reflecting on the fact that the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), has probably spent more time on the Back Benches during Prime Minister’s questions since July than her successor has spent at the Dispatch Box, given his absence last week. I do not think that that is anything for the Government to be proud of.
The biggest loser from Prorogation will be my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who will not be able to present his Prime Minister (Nomination) and Cabinet (Appointment) Bill under the ten-minute rule next Wednesday. That will be a source of great disappointment to the House as a whole and, I am sure, the Government in particular, and to my hon. Friend. The only possible compensation will be the elevation to the Privy Council that he so richly deserves.
We are also very disappointed by the lack of Opposition days next week. We have made our requests through the usual channels; and, as we have pointed out before, Standing Orders allocate days to the leader of the third party, which will not now be granted. That must be getting very close to a contempt of the House, and it is at the very least a gross discourtesy to the third party. I urge the Leader of the House to reconsider his allocation of time for next week, important though the statutory instruments that he has scheduled are.
Perhaps we can end on a slight note of consensus. Last week, the Leader of the House spoke about Padre Pio. On 13 October, the Christian community in this country will celebrate the canonisation of John Henry Newman. The all-party parliamentary group on the Holy See will have a delegation representing the House in Rome, and the Prince of Wales will represent the Queen. I wonder whether anyone will represent Her Majesty’s Government. Next year will be the 10th anniversary of Pope Benedict’s visit to the UK and his important speech in Westminster Hall. Would the Leader of the House be willing to meet those of us with an interest in such things to discuss how that could be appropriately commemorated in the Houses of Parliament?
Mr Rees-Mogg
If I may, I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions in reverse order. The canonisation of Cardinal Newman is a matter of great joy to Catholics in this country and to other Christians. It is a matter of huge celebration. It is very rare that a Briton is elevated and becomes, by God’s divine mercy, a saint, and we should all rejoice at that. I do not know whether a member of Her Majesty’s Government is going to be at the ceremony. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was suggesting that I should go, but if he was, that suggestion is very welcome. However, that is not for me to decide. I agree that it would be suitable to have a meeting to discuss the 10th anniversary of the Holy Father Emeritus’s visit, which was a wonderful occasion on which he gave a very moving speech.
As regards Opposition days, I am going to say what I said to the shadow Leader of the House. Should the hon. Gentleman want to have a vote of no confidence, time will be made available and we will give him a day in which to speak. That would give us the opportunity to speak in the other direction on the many virtues of this fantastic Government.
Business of the House
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. It has to be said that this Parliament has passed more private Members’ Bills than any since 2003; 13 have gone to Royal Assent and additional Fridays were made available. It was absolutely right that additional time was made available, but the essential point of what we are trying to do is to get through the public business that the Government were elected to get through. That is what we are aiming for. We have done well on private Members’ Bills, but I doubt that there will be additional time for them.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I echo the calls for temperate language in our exchanges in the House and I join in the congratulations to the shadow Leader of the House. I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is going to be left out in these exchanges. His Privy Counsellorship really must be expedited as a matter of urgency.
As for next week’s business, such as it is, we are happy to support all the efforts to restore the operation of devolved government in Northern Ireland, but my heart bleeds for the poor Conservative Ministers and Back Benchers who will now have to come to the House during their conference. Successive Scottish National party Chief Whips have used the usual channels to communicate the dates of our conferences over the years, and at no point have we been afforded a recess, despite our status as the third party in this place. In fact, the target date—or it may not be the target date—for the Queen’s Speech now is the second day of the SNP conference, and given that none of us has yet mastered the art of bilocation, I would be interested in the recommendations of the Leader of the House for those circumstances.
Given that the House is to continue meeting, thanks in no small part due to the efforts of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), I want to emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire said last night. The Standing Orders of this House provide for three Opposition days per Session in the name of the Leader of the third party, and in two years we have had one and a half days. So, however long this Session runs before the next legal Prorogation, the Leader of the House really needs to find time for us to fulfil our role as the third party in the House and the largest party in Scotland, as the Standing Orders of the House, which he considers to be sovereign, require. Knowing how much he cherishes the procedures and customs of this place, I am sure he is the last person who would want to be in breach of either the spirit or the letter of those Standing Orders.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that temperate language is often to be encouraged. He mentioned bilocation. I think Padre Pio, not that long ago canonised, was famed for his ability to be in two places at once, and there is good evidence for this. I am surprised that the SNP do not consider themselves sufficiently saintly to be able to achieve the same and be both at their conference and away from it. The most important point that the hon. Gentleman raised was about the SNP’s Opposition day. I will say on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government that SNP Members may have an Opposition day any day next week; should they wish to have a vote of confidence, it will be theirs.
Business of the House
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—in fact, I think he should be my right hon. Friend—is racing back in breathless anticipation of the Lords amendments. We all know how much he values the Lords and their amendments. I have been left here to respond, but I do not know whether I would qualify for a last-minute spot on the Leader of the House’s caravan holiday. I am not as musically talented as my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire, but I was told at my auntie’s recent birthday party—she turns 70 today, Mr Speaker—that I mix a good Bloody Mary. That might be helpful for Conservative Members next week when they wake up after six weeks of self-indulgence with an almighty hangover and realise the enormity of what they have done in selecting the new Prime Minister. That is why the Leader of the House really must make time for my hon. Friend’s Prime Minister (Nomination) and Cabinet (Appointment) Bill, which would give this House the opportunity to endorse any candidate put forward for nomination as Prime Minister. That is what happens in most civilised democratic institutions these days—starting, of course, with the Scottish Parliament.
Failing that, perhaps the Leader of the House’s caravan could be fitted with a rocket booster so that we can all observe the new Prime Minister’s blunders from the safety of the moon. Perhaps we could also have some time to debate my early-day motion 2599, which I have launched with support from across the House. It commemorates the 50th anniversary of that shared human endeavour.
[That this House recognises that 20 July 2019 marks 50 years since humanity first landed on the moon; remembers that NASA’s legendary Apollo 11 mission was launched by a Saturn V rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the ambition of landing a crew on the moon and returning them safely to earth; thanks the crew of three American astronauts, Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Buzz Aldrin; recalls that the Lunar module, nicknamed the Eagle, finally touched down on the moon on 20th July 1969; celebrates the legacy of Commander Armstrong who become the first human to ever set foot on the moon as he took one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind on to the lunar surface; further recognises that the moon landing represented the single greatest accomplishment in human history as it pushed the boundaries of what was believed to be possible and united humanity in a sense of collective endeavour and hopes that the spirit of Apollo 11 will inspire future generations to better understand the complexities of the universe.]
If we cannot go to the moon, perhaps we could go to Kew Gardens. At least, Scottish National party Members could go to Kew Gardens, because we are all going to be shut out of the debate on the Kew Gardens (Leases) (No. 3) Bill next week as the English Parliament—the English votes for English laws Legislative Grand Committee—meets for the first time in its full glory to consider that Bill in Committee. We look forward to seeing how many Members from England actually turn up to take part in that process, which was supposed to transform democracy in the United Kingdom.
Perhaps while we are in Kew Gardens, we can have a look under the bushes to see whether we can find out where the 1.5 allocated Opposition days that are still due to the SNP have got to. There are many good reasons not to prorogue Parliament in the autumn, but if it were to be prorogued without our having had those opportunities that we as the third party are entitled to under the terms of the Standing Orders, that—and the use of the EVEL procedures—would serve only to demonstrate the fact that Scotland’s voice is being tuned out and that the Leader of the House’s caravan is ready to drive off into the Brexit sunset without us.
Mel Stride
I welcome the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) to his place, standing in for the legendary hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, who I hope will be here next week, so that I can use my various lines on him. The hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned the Prime Minister (Nomination) and Cabinet (Appointment) Bill, which would make the Prime Minister’s appointment subject to a vote in this House. However, I think it is just a thinly veiled attempt by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire to get himself into No. 10 Downing Street, coming hard on the heels, as it does, of his tilt at the speakership and his Speaker’s manifesto. We know that all that is just a blatant power grab.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned EVEL. All I have to say is that this approach is working well and gives everybody across the House the ability to participate in the various debates at the different stages of a Bill, while giving the final veto on devolved competencies to the relevant area, such as England and Wales. He also mentioned Opposition day debates, and the Standing Orders are clear that there will be 20 such days per session, with 17 for the main Opposition party and three for the second largest, which is the SNP. My understanding is that that allocation has been met.
Bullying and Harassment of MPs’ Parliamentary Staff
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), the former Leader of the House, and I acknowledge the significant amount of work she has done to drive this forward.
I pass on the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is travelling with the Scottish Affairs Committee. He, too, has been part of the process for some considerable time.
Most of all, on behalf of the SNP, our parliamentary group and our parliamentary and constituency staff, I thank Gemma White for her thorough and challenging report, which marks an important milestone on the journey towards culture change in this place. It is welcome that the Government have made time for this debate and for the motion on the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme so soon after the report’s publication.
I also thank, in particular, Emily Cunningham from the SNP’s central staff. She has been on several of the workstreams as a staff representative and has helped to inform a lot of this.
I will briefly address the report, which we are happy to endorse, and what it means in terms of culture change and the professionalisation of Parliament, with some best practices from elsewhere. As the opening speakers have said, the report makes for sobering but not necessarily surprising reading. It is important to note, as the Leader of the House did, that Gemma White says
“there are very many MPs who are good employers and who treat their staff with the dignity and respect that they deserve”.
We should also not be blind to the occasional possibility of vexatious or malicious complaints—we are in a high-pressured, high-profile environment—but overall the report presents a picture of a culture that badly and urgently needs to change. Sadly, it contains accounts of behaviours that many of us will have heard about and perhaps some of us will have witnessed. Bullying, harassment, and a toxic culture of insecurity and under- mining have been found to be commonplace, and they are all perhaps manifestations of deeper-rooted cultures and behaviours associated with the abuse of power.
As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) hinted at, eventually that can become embedded and it becomes a form of learned and normalised behaviour that others either pick up or openly embrace. Challenges arise from the fact that we work in a particularly fast-paced, rapidly changing environment, where employment can be precarious and opportunities for advancement can be limited. When it comes, advancement can be massive, involving significant leaps in responsibility. So this is a huge challenge that requires each and every one of us to go back to the start and question our own behaviours and assumptions.
Jamie Stone
The hon. Gentleman is correct in what he is saying, but there is a greyer area at the edge of this issue. He has outlined the obvious cases of shouting, bullying and so on, but I would also argue that when an MP asks a member of staff to babysit a child or go to the MP’s flat to wait for the gas man to come that, too, is an abuse of that member of staff.
Patrick Grady
The hon. Gentleman is touching on an important issue—these little grey areas where relationships can become very close, because of the intense environment, and we ask for things that perhaps we would ask a friend to do, but not necessarily a paid member of staff. It is important that boundaries are established, and some of this is covered in that Valuing Everyone training. I will say a little more about that later, but I cannot recommend that training highly enough. The former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire, will be pleased to hear that a significant number of the Scottish National party group took part in that training last Thursday, coincidentally just as this report was being published, and everybody came away with things to think about and having found it a very worthwhile experience.
As well as the Valuing Everyone training on respect, dignity and understanding boundaries, there is definitely a need for further training on employment best practice. It is worth thinking about when and how some of that training takes place. There is a role for the political parties to play here, even at the candidate selection stage. Doing what we are doing now, sitting on the Green Benches and standing to make speeches is the most visible part of the job, but it is a tiny part of what is involved in the work of a Member of Parliament. People putting themselves forward for election—and I count myself in this—do not necessarily realise everything that comes with the elected responsibility. So at the selection stage prospective candidates have to be fully aware of the responsibilities they will be taking on as employers and the standards that they will be expected to adhere to. There is also perhaps a more formal role for returning officers to play during that nomination stage or shortly after the election. Then, as the hon. Member for Rhondda said, very early in the MP induction process the advice and support on being an effective employer must be available.
That is why the proposal on a fully resourced human resources department is crucial to all of this, and we warmly welcome it. The system would probably be better sitting under the auspices of the House or the Commission. If it was to be somehow independent, it should be clearly so, even if staff continue to be funded through the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. This is not what IPSA has been set up for and I do not think it is fair to IPSA, let alone to the people who would have to live with the consequences of it.
A new-form HR department also leads on to the recommendation that MPs be required to adopt and follow employment practices and procedures aligned to best practice found in the public sector and elsewhere. We also fully support the recommendation that former members of staff be allowed to access the independent complaints and grievance scheme, and will support the motion to implement that following this debate.
As I said, underlying any structural and procedural changes that are put in place must be a wider cultural change. Politics and political considerations should never be allowed to take precedence over principles of dignity and respect. That means that Members of Parliament and staff must be active in calling out and working to eradicate unacceptable behaviour. It comes through in the training that I mentioned that as Members we all have a duty to recognise our privilege and power and not abuse it. When complaints are made, staff and MPs should be properly supported. Nothing should discourage staff members from coming forward through the proper channels if they have concerns about their own experiences or those of others. We must work towards creating an environment in which everyone feels empowered to speak out if they feel they are being affected by bullying or harassment, and in which everyone in the parliamentary community feels that they work in a safe, comfortable and professional environment, supported by a robust system of human resources and a complaints and grievance procedure.
It was not strictly part of the remit of either Gemma White or Laura Cox, but perhaps we need to look a bit deeper into where some of these practices and behaviours have come from and how they are perpetuated. We work in a building that was designed to promote power and hierarchy—to establish a culture of “them and us”. In previous debates, we have heard new Members of Parliament speak of how on their election they felt intimidated by signs on toilets and tea rooms that say “Members only”. That was certainly my experience back in 2015, and it sometimes still is today. Quite why a staircase or a toilet is only for the use of Members of Parliament is somewhat beyond me. I know that moves are afoot to drive some change in that regard.
Once upon a time, I worked as a researcher in the Scottish Parliament. Although by no means was everything perfect there, there was an openness and transparency that undoubtedly shaped a different culture of tolerance and respect. In Portcullis House and on the Terrace, we still have tables that are clearly marked as for Members only. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) will know, in the Scottish Parliament canteen one will see Cabinet Secretaries sitting down next to the team from the mail room and special advisers sitting next to the cleaning staff. There is no sense of deference and no sense of particular entitlement based on obscure notions of seniority or grading.
Jamie Stone
I am always terribly glad when a colleague makes a good advert for the way we did things in Holyrood. That level society is a reflection of the fact that in Scotland we ourselves are all Jock Tamson’s bairns.
Patrick Grady
Absolutely. That is not to say that everything there is perfect—I do not pretend for a minute that everything is perfect—but when the Scottish Parliament was set up 20 years ago, it was designed with a completely different culture in mind, and that has led to very noticeable differences.
Here at Westminster, we work hours that push everyone to the limits of tolerance. Massive uncertainties, even on quiet days such as this, as to exactly when things are going to finish only contributes to the stress and tensions. Perhaps it would help if we had fixed times for voting and if we were not locked into crowded rooms to vote, which again promotes hierarchy and literally divides us. None of it is massively surprising. Another report that ought to be factored into this discussion is Professor Sarah Childs’ “The Good Parliament”, which is in many ways about driving a wider cultural change. Perhaps if more of her recommendations were put in place, that would go a long way towards driving that change forward. None of these reports should be left to sit on the shelf; we all have a responsibility to drive them forward.
This is not and should not be a comfortable debate for any of us. Nobody is in a position to claim the moral high ground; if the dignity of any individual member of staff has been violated, in some way we are all diminished by that. Perhaps, on reflection, some of us will recognise our own behaviours, although hopefully not the more extreme examples and hopefully not things that are intentional. In the heat of the moment, in a stressful situation, we can forget our privilege and project our frustrations on to a member of staff or on to colleagues who are not really the cause of a problem. That is something I have taken away from the Valuing Everyone training which, as I said, I cannot recommend highly enough.
Since many of these accusations and reports of bullying, harassment and unacceptable behaviours first began to surface, there has been a strong and commendable consensus throughout this process. In the SNP, we want to continue to be part of that consensus, and I assure the House that we will happily support any and all efforts to implement the recommendations of the White report, and anything that we can do to drive change of the toxic and outdated culture and practices that are experienced in this place.
Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
As I said in the previous debate, the SNP is very happy to support this motion and welcomes the changes to the independent complaints and grievance procedure, to open it up to cases that predate the 2017 Parliament. That is the most important way we can ensure that anyone who has been affected by inappropriate behaviour in the parliamentary community has access to and independent means of achieving justice, as well as the many excellent support services that have been put in place.
While I understand why the previous cut-off date was introduced to begin the process, it now feels arbitrary, and it does not recognise that investigations should be based on the weight of evidence, not simply the passage of time. That is why we are pleased that in the Commission’s statement, a key emphasis is placed on ensuring that the investigatory process at all stages is
“independent, impartial, thorough and fair, and evidence led”.
As was said in the previous debate, we have to remember that this is fundamentally about achieving not only justice for people who have been affected by inappropriate behaviour but longer-term cultural change in Parliament. Once again, the SNP is happy to support the motion.
Business of the House
Patrick Grady Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mel Stride
There are several important points to make about the important issue of homelessness which the hon. Lady has raised. The first is the Government’s commitment to ensuring that we build more homes. We have built 220,000 new homes, the highest number for any year other than one in the last 31 years. She will know that we have announced a substantial, multimillion- pound fund to address rough sleeping. We have seen a slight decline over the more recent period, but there is still a lot more to do. This is an important issue that will always be worthy of debate, and if the hon. Lady would like to apply for an Adjournment debate, that might be a useful approach to take.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I think this is the first chance that I have had to welcome the new Leader of the House to his place. We are grateful for the SNP Opposition day, and I hope that the three hours next Wednesday will be protected.
I echo the calls for a statement by the Foreign Secretary on the situation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I had the huge privilege of meeting her husband outside the Iranian embassy this morning. He is showing huge determination and solidarity. I know that Members from across the House have been to visit, so perhaps the Leader of the House can encourage some of his colleagues on the Front Bench—perhaps the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Foreign Secretary—to show their solidarity with Richard and Nazanin’s family and finally get the justice that the family are so hungry for.
Mel Stride
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question; this matter has now been raised, quite rightly, for the third time in these business questions. I have set out the various actions that the Government continue to take to press the Iranian regime to do the right thing and release Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and I know that the hon. Gentleman’s comments about Richard’s hunger strike will have been heard throughout the House.