Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report — House of Commons, 2018-11-05
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with nearly every word that the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) just said, apart from one thing: I do not think that everybody does necessarily know what inappropriate behaviour is. He was right in what he said about women, and I completely endorse everything he said in that respect. When I first arrived here in 2001, as a gay man, I certainly faced bullying in this place. We have to be alert to the fact that we can all still learn more about the way we present ourselves and how we behave. There is not a single Member of this House who could not benefit from proper training, because the biggest driver of cultural change in any institution in the world is always education and training. That is what we need to do more of in this House I know that in a few moments the Leader of the House is going to mouth at me, "But we are doing it!" We are, and lots of training is available, but sometimes it is not very well advertised; sometimes people are not aware of when it would be available to them; and sometimes it is put on at a time when a Member simply would not be able to go. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) was absolutely right to make the point about predictability. Sometimes, we might want to go and do a training programme and we simply cannot, because suddenly something happens in the parliamentary day that makes it impossible for us to go Incidentally, there is something that the Speaker could help us with. When a debate under Standing Order 24 is decided the day before and is it not going to be voted on, why do we not hold that debate at the end of the day, rather than at the beginning, so that Members can have the certainty of being able to go home at the time at which they thought they would go home? That would mean that we could still have important debates such as the one we had on Yemen, but it would not necessarily make life difficult for everybody I completely agree with the Leader of the House about democratising the Commission. I have worked in many institutions, including the Church of England and the BBC, and I am now here—it is like a Daily Mail terrible headline, is it not?—and in all those institutions, the problem is that all too often the institution’s first reaction when there is an action or story against it is to defend itself. That has happened here in the House, for the whole House, but it is also intrinsic in the nature of the Commission, because each of the Commission’s members is appointed by their party political leader. It would be better if we elected the Commission and it started to behave more as a team, rather than just one person leading for the whole House. One thing that I have been asked by a large number of staff, particularly women, who work here is whether we could do something about lighting in the House. When we did work on disabled access to the building for the restoration and renewal report, the thing that came up most was that the building is very dark. People cannot read their papers. There are parts of the building that feel dangerous. If we are to talk about safety, why not light the public access ways and the corridors, so that the corridors of power are not a frightening place Finally, many members of staff have seen what has happened in relation to this issue and despaired because they think change is never really going to be possible. Do not despair. Even in the time for which I have been here, there have been changes. Portcullis House is a far more democratic space than many of the eating places and drinking places in this part of the estate—and guess what? That is where everybody gathers. MPs, their staff and people who work for the House all gather there together. Change is definitely possible. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) said, we now have an induction programme; we should have a really good induction programme. Would it not be great if every single member of the Cabinet and the shadow Cabinet and all the members of the Commission committed by the end of this week to do full training on bullying and harassment within the next 12 months?