Independent Expert Panel Recommendations for Sanctions and the Recall of MPs Act 2015 — House of Commons, 2021-10-19
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with much that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has said, but I am a little more sceptical about whether the changed attitude towards the House and its Members will remain for much longer than another 24 hours. I have been here before, and if we look at some of the online comments some of us have received over the last 72 hours, we see that they have been even more aggressively nasty than the ones last week I thank Sir Stephen Irwin, who I think has done a magnificent job ever since he started with the independent expert panel, and all the other members of the panel. However, it is also worth remembering that the person who works most closely with them is the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. I think we should pay tribute to the magnificent work that she has done in this field as well. These are often complex, difficult and highly emotionally charged cases to deal with, and coming to a secure idea of what has actually happened in some instances is not simple One danger with adopting the policy that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire suggested, in an environment where each parliamentary office has a Member of Parliament and perhaps three or four members of staff, is that it might reveal the name of the complainant, which breaches confidentiality. That needs to be addressed carefully When the 2015 Act was introduced, it was absolutely clear that the House intended the process to apply to all the cases that might possibly be brought, because they could then be brought only to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, hence the way in which the legislation was drafted. Any case of bullying or sexual harassment that might have come to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, if we proposed a sanction of 14 or more days or 10 sitting days, would have invoked the recall petition process. When we created the independent expert panel, as the Leader of the House was absolutely right to say, many of the trade unions were opposed to the idea of making that process apply. I have always thought that they were wrong, for the very simple reason that we have ended up looking as if we take offences about registration of interests, paid advocacy and things like that more seriously than bullying and sexual harassment Bullying and sexual harassment cases could not possibly lead to somebody leaving the House through the recall petition process as it is presently constituted. However, the independent expert panel could, if it wanted to, recommend the expulsion of a Member. I do not know what the case would have to be to lead to that—that is a matter for it—but I will come on to that later in relation to the amendment from my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House. I just think it is wrong that we should have what seems to be a higher bar for sexual harassment and bullying cases than for other cases that come before the Committee As Sir Stephen has said and as the Leader of the House intimated, it would be better to correct that by legislation, and I have had this conversation with the right hon. Gentleman. Leaders of the House always say that there is never any time to do anything by legislation and that it is absolutely impossible, until suddenly they find that it is absolutely possible, it is absolutely necessary and it must all be done in one day. That is the kind of thing that happens to Leaders of the House: somebody who lives on a street a little bit further up Whitehall somehow manages to tug the ear of Leaders of the House, and they find time that they never had before. The slight danger of doing it this way is that something has to go from the independent expert panel to the Committee on Standards. I know that the Committee shall produce a report and it must be equal to the report that has come from the independent expert panel; none the less, there is a danger that the process is a bit more cumbersome and it undermines an element of the independence of the independent expert panel. We might end up having a debate in the Standards Committee, and I think that would be entirely inappropriate. If the House cannot have a debate on it, why on earth should the Standards Committee be able to have a debate on it? I can assure the House, having discussed this with the Standards Committee, that we will not debate that. However, I am the Chair today, and who knows who might be the Chair in the future or who might be the members of the Committee in the future? So I would still prefer us, at some point, to have proper legislation to clear this up, rather than simply relying on the Standing Orders and the good will of the Committee on Standards.