Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme
I call the Chair of the Standards Committee.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,779 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme
Amendments (a) to (e) have been selected for separate decision. However, I understand that no Member wishes to move them, so I will move straight to the main Question. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House notes the report of the House of Commons Commission entitled Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme: Policy Framework and ICGS Assurance Board (HC 579), further notes the Decisions of the Commission on 12 May, and agrees: (1) That the ICGS Policy Framework in respect of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct annexed to the Commission report shall have effect from 14 July 2025. (2) There shall be a body called the ICGS Assurance Board. (3) The ICGS Assurance Board shall conduct assurance of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme on behalf of the parliamentary community, in accordance with terms of reference published by the House of Commons Commission on 17 December 2024. (4) The terms of reference of the Assurance Board may be varied by agreement between the House of Commons Commission and the House of Lords Commission. (5) The ICGS Assurance Board shall consist of: (a) the Clerk Assistant, (b) the Clerk Assistant of the House of Lords, (c) the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, (d) the Chair of the Independent Expert Panel, (e) a Member of the House of Commons who is a member of the House of Commons Commission, appointed by the Commission, (f) a Member of the House of Lords who is a member of the House of Lords Commission, (g) a representative of the House of Lords Conduct Committee, and (h) a representative of the human resources department from each House Administration. (6) The ICGS Assurance Board shall have authority to approve ICGS Procedures, in accordance with the ICGS Policy Framework, provided that: (a) nothing in the ICGS Procedures document may amend or override provisions in the Policy Framework; (b) procedures cannot create new obligations for individuals’ conduct. (7) The policies and procedures relating to bullying and harassment and sexual misconduct endorsed by the House on 19 July 2018 and amended on 17 July 2019, 28 April 2021 and 26 April 2022 shall cease to have effect on 14 July 2025, save that they shall continue to apply to any complaints received on or before 13 July 2025.
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Employer National Insurance Contributions: School Redundancies
2. What estimate she has made of the potential impact of increases in employer national insurance contributions on the number of redundancies in schools.
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Employer National Insurance Contributions: School Redundancies
May I update the Minister, who seems to be very complacent on this issue? In Harrow, where I have been out to see many of our schools, since we passed the resignation date, vacancies are not being filled and many staff feel threatened with being made redundant from our schools. That is not good for our children or for the education system. All the schools say that these issues are because of the national insurance hikes that have taken place, which are penalising school budgets. Will the Minister take action to ensure that money is provided to enable schools to recruit the staff that we need?
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Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report
The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and I are the sole remaining Members of the House who served on the Communities and Local Government Committee when we conducted the inquiries into Rotherham, in both November 2014 and March 2015. We heard from the victims then about the terrible abuse they had suffered and interviewed Dame Louise Casey at great length about her concerns over what was happening and what was being allowed to happen. There is clearly still something going on, which is that most victims are young girls from broken homes who have been taken into care by local authorities and have never experienced the love of a family. They then take the view that someone expressing some form of love is something that they should like and enjoy, when the reality is that they are being ruthlessly exploited by individuals who should know better, and are evil. The key concern here is the lackadaisical approach that has been taken by many local authorities, social workers, police forces and other bodies. My genuine concern, which I am sure is shared by other Members, is that a local inquiry will not get individuals who either turned a blind eye or actually participated in the abuse to give evidence. Will the Home Secretary ensure that witnesses are called to those inquiries under oath so that we can get to the bottom of this, and make sure that those who turned a blind eye to or connived in this abuse are brought to justice as well as the perpetrators?
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Iran-Israel Conflict
We knew that Iran had the ballistic missiles to hit Europe, let alone Israel or other parts of the middle east. Last week, the IAEA reported that Iran was within a whisker of producing atomic weapons. In the absence of diplomatic efforts and the failure to introduce the snapback mechanism, Israel had a right to react to protect itself. Will the Foreign Secretary now look at the diplomatic efforts to introduce the snapback mechanism and to impose sanctions on Iran to ensure that it cannot ever obtain nuclear weapons?
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Air India Plane Crash
Around 30% of my constituents emanate from Gujarat originally. On Saturday, we came together in one of the Hindu temples with the interfaith council, and people of all religions and none expressed their condolences. At that temple, 20 people have lost relatives. Last night, we attended another vigil at a temple where four relatives of people who work there have lost their lives. Can the Minister give us an update on one issue? For the 53 UK nationals who sadly lost their life, we have been able to communicate to their family that they have unfortunately died, but there were 169 Indian nationals who were almost certainly due to visit family in the UK—families that extend across the country. Has the FCDO been able to advise those families of the loss of those lives, so that instead of being by the telephone waiting in hope that their relatives were not on the plane, they have a certain outcome?
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Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme
May I begin by welcoming the Government’s motion to put the assurance board on a proper footing, and to introduce a clear policy framework under which the ICGS will operate? As some colleagues have said, the ICGS is an extremely important parliamentary workplace scheme, covering all members of the parliamentary community—more than 10,000 people. Unusually for a body set up only six years ago—by a former Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom—it has undergone a number of reviews, which have highlighted concerns about the operation of the scheme and made recommendations to this House. The most recent was the Kernaghan review, from which today’s Government motion has its genesis. The motion will set up in permanent form an assurance board to oversee the workings of the ICGS. I welcome the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on to that new assurance board on a permanent footing. Why are we here today? The ICGS has experienced a number of concerning process issues since it was set up, particularly in respect of the quality of its investigations and the excessive time delays in the processing of those investigations. If complainants and respondents are to trust the ICGS, it is of paramount importance for the assurance board to ensure that the issues encountered with the investigatory process are resolved, and that complainants and respondents are subject to a process with a credible and, importantly, timely outcome. As I am sure all Members agree, it is not acceptable to complainants and respondents that, in what is an internal workplace process, they must sometimes wait for years for an outcome on, for instance, bullying. The Committee on Standards is specifically prohibited from involvement in individual ICGS cases. Preserving the independence of those investigations is vital to the success of the investigations, and to the confidence of those who seek the aid of the ICGS and those who are investigated under the scheme. However, the ICGS is part of a wider standards landscape within the House, and the Committee on Standards has a useful voice in highlighting how the scheme is operating and in commenting on policy. In the standards landscape report produced shortly before the last general election, our predecessors—some of whom remain members of the Committee, particularly the lay members—noted that the Committee had not had time to consider fully the recommendations of the Kernaghan review. In paragraph 175 of that report, the previous Standards Committee recommended to the House that the new Committee, which I now chair, should continue to consider the analysis and recommendations contained in the review. As Chair of the Committee, I can inform the House that the Committee has since had discussions about the work of the ICGS with its outgoing director, Thea Walton—I thank her for the work that she has done—and that it is due to discuss that work further next week. Owing to the pressure of other work—notably the complex inquiry that we have undertaken at the request of the Modernisation Committee and the Leader of the House into outside interests and employment—we have not had time to consider fully all Mr Kernaghan’s recommendations and their implementation, but we will continue to make that a focus of our work during the current Parliament. Members may have noted that the proposed new assurance board would contain a member of the House of Lords Conduct Committee, but not a Member of the Standards Committee in the Commons. Dame Laura Cox, in her 2018 report on the bullying and harassment of Commons staff, recommended that processes to determine such complaints should be entirely independent of Members of Parliament, and that is the course that the House adopted. The House of Lords is responsible for its own processes, and its Committee retains a greater role than this House’s Committee in these matters. Let me emphasise that it is absolutely proper for MPs not to be involved in determining complaints, but there may be scope for involvement in the policy framework surrounding complaints. I have not sought to amend the motion today—as I have said, I welcome it—but given that involvement in policy does not equate to interference in complaints, and nor should it, it may be worth revisiting in future whether, since the Lords Committee will be represented, this House’s Committee on Standards ought to be represented as well. It might also be worth revisiting whether a valuable member voice—and by “member” I mean not just a Member of Parliament but a lay member of the Committee—beyond the House of Commons Commission might also be useful. I do not expect the Leader of the House to respond to that suggestion today, because it is proper for the Committee on Standards to consider this matter fully, as recommended and as approved by the House. Once it has had the opportunity to do so, it may well revert with further recommendations on how today’s motion might be enhanced as we go forward together, on a cross-party basis, seeking to ensure that we have the best parliamentary workplace scheme, with the appropriate parliamentary stakeholders included in this welcome assurance board. Let me end by acknowledging what some other Members have said about trade unions. Only a few hours ago, Unite’s parliamentary staff branch emailed all MPs about this very point. I think that the point that I have made about the Committee on Standards sits well with the parliamentary staff branch’s own views on ensuring that all relevant parliamentary stakeholders are included in this welcome assurance board.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I entirely support his argument and his amendment. This is the difference between, in his estimation, accepting a request and promoting a service. Advertising is about the promotion of a service to doubtful, fearful and vulnerable people, and that is precisely what his amendment addresses.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Will my hon. Friend give way?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
The reason why what my hon. Friend has said is so important is that it is yet another important safeguard, particularly given that, as we learn from analysis in the impact assessment, much of this is outsourced to private organisations. Those organisations need to be regulated in precisely the way he has described.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
The hon. Gentleman is fast becoming one of my favourites on the Government Benches, among many competitors. The point that he makes is fundamental. If we are going to do this right, we have to do it thoroughly and with independent analysis. Had the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) engaged in pre-legislative scrutiny and thorough analysis before introducing the Bill, we may have ironed these matters out in the first place.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Edmund Burke said: “Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.” Over time, I have seen many imperfect measures put before the House—under Governments of all persuasions, by the way—and usually, through scrutiny, they are improved. That is because the parliamentary process works when there is time available, and in particular when there is pre-legislative scrutiny, independent analysis and thorough thinking about the consequences of what we debate here. That could have happened on this important matter, but it has not because it has been shoehorned into a process ill-fitted for its purpose. The amendments we are debating are a late attempt to improve the Bill. I particularly recommend the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who made an excellent contribution to our debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). I support those amendments because it is critical that the safeguards in the Bill are not only maintained but improved and enhanced, for all the reasons advanced by hon. Members across the House about coercion and vulnerable people. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) said she has never encountered coercion. North Herefordshire must be a wonderful place where people carry harps and drink ambrosia, but in the rest of the kingdom and, I assert, the rest of the world, there are many wicked people doing many bad things. We must never allow those wicked people to have reign and power over those who inevitably, because of their circumstances, will be at risk if the Bill is not improved.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I give way to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire as I cited her.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I am afraid that I disagree. There are numerous cases where people will be encouraged, and perhaps even forced, to take a decision, when they are coping with illness and at their most vulnerable—when they are frightened, doubtful and distressed, and may be unbalanced. Of course we have to protect against that eventuality if the Bill is to be passed.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
The hon. Gentleman anticipated what I was about to say; I have cited exactly that evidence many times during the debate. We need to look at the experience elsewhere to inform what we do here. We always do that when we pass the right laws in this place. There is worse news than that, because rather than being improved during its passage, the Bill has in many ways got worse, in particular by giving additional powers to Ministers—so-called Henry VIII powers. When the two words “delegated legislation” are mentioned in this place, we should always be fearful; when the words “ministerial discretion” are used, be doubly fearful. I said that looking directly at Government Front-Bench Members, but I could have been looking at the Conservative Front Bench. The Bill gives permissive powers to Government to make all kinds of changes. I want to take some of those to illustrate my point. The Bill empowers Ministers to amend the Suicide Act, including the offence of encouraging suicide. They can rewrite the principles of the NHS, in section 1 of the National Health Service Act, to read, “secure improvement in the mental health of the people of England and Wales and end the lives of the terminally ill”. They can amend the NHS Act to specify that this service is not free of charge. The Bill points only to the section of the National Health Service Act that says, “services to be provided free of charge except where charging expressly provided for”. They can amend the definition of a registered medical practitioner, so it is not a doctor carrying out the assessment. And so on and so forth. That is why the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) is so vital. The speech she gave was among the best speeches I have heard in this House. The passion she feels for vulnerable people and the difference the NHS makes to them is not only felt on the Labour Benches, as she well knows, regardless of the theatre. We all come to this place to ensure that the least fortunate have a voice; that those with less power are given a little more by our advocacy. In conclusion, I say to the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) that there has never been any doubt about the depth of her piety. Let us now be sure about the breadth of her mind. If she really wants the Bill to be passed in a way that is palatable, then she must surely accept the amendments I have supported and highlighted in this brief—all too brief—contribution.
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Business without Debate
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It might be useful if a Member of Parliament who has not often taken part in demos in central London intervenes at this point to show that opinion in this House of Commons is absolutely united. In various Parliaments—indeed, in most Parliaments in Europe—MPs have immunity from prosecution. We have never had that system here, and we have always proclaimed what is very much the British way: that Members of Parliament are no different from any other member of the public. If they do wrong, they will be held to account, but they should not be subject to some greater test of culpability just because they are Members of Parliament. As somebody who is not in the same party as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and often has rather different views from his, I wanted to rise to show that what he has just said has universal support in this House.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder if you can assist me as I am at a loss as to what amendment we are discussing.
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Business without Debate
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Would it be possible for you to explain why that is not a matter for the Chair? Surely if MPs are going to be deemed by the Metropolitan police to have greater culpability than other citizens, that must be a matter for the Chair and for Mr Speaker. Why should it be delegated to the Clerks?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Will the hon. Member give way?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My hon. Friend is right in what she says. Those of us who are opposed to the death penalty, for example, are against it because we do not believe in the infallibility of the state. The state can get things wrong; professionals can get things wrong—and when they do, there should be a proven, clear path as to how that wrongdoing can be identified, to try to ensure that it does not occur again.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I rise to speak in support of amendments (a) and (b) to new clause 14, new clauses 1, 2 and 16, and amendment (a) to new clause 15. I will make two observations at the outset. I do so as a Welshman representing an English constituency, as a former Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and as the current Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I remain to be convinced, despite the confidence expressed by the Bill’s promoter, that the Bill honours, in spirit and letter, the devolution settlement. Based on the expression on the face of the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), I do not think she believes that it honours the devolution settlement as far as Scotland is concerned either. I also make the point that we are here to make law that has to stand the test of time. She was not the only one to do so, but the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) shared a heartfelt anecdote about a conversation with her mother as a result of her mother’s professional work. I know how easy it is to do, because it is a trap that I have fallen into, but, particularly on an issue as emotive and literally life-changing as this, we should not base our decision just on anecdote. We must base it on cold analysis of what is before us. It is almost six months to the day since the Bill was introduced and still I think it is best described as skeletal. We have been told time and again by the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) and the Minister how busy officials have been looking at the practicalities of the Bill and how to operationalise it and make it workable. Yet this House is kept in the dark on what Ministers intend. Indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) said in his earlier contribution that his understanding was that the hon. Lady was still prepared to work with colleagues to perfect the Bill. But, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are on the second day of Report stage and we could easily fall to Third Reading today. The time for that evolutionary conversation is long past. The time for detailed clarification is now. The Bill remains skeletal.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I will not; I am very conscious of time. Madam Deputy Speaker, given that so many right hon. and hon. Members have been constrained in the length of their contributions because of your persistent cough—I say that not as a criticism—and that next week we have a lot of one-line Whips and the following week we have exactly the same, more time really should be given to the Bill. I do wish the Government had taken it on, not as a Government Bill but by finding Government time for Report on the Floor of the House. This is too serious an issue to have as many gaps and lacunae as this Bill has. The founding fathers of the United States worked on the basis that the vague generalities of the constitution would always be adhered to, and that men and women of goodwill would adhere to it. I am pretty certain that they are now beginning posthumously, with the current incarnation, to wonder whether that is true. We should not be legislating to leave it up to Ministers to define regulations and decide how they come forward. We have Bills that have page after page after page which, when people ask themselves, “What is this all about?”, actually amount to very little. The amendments that have been tabled, and which I support, have been tabled in good faith, but I am afraid to say that, in trying to improve the Bill, they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I rise to speak to amendment (a) to new clause 15, tabled in my name, which I hope hon. Members will support. Although it may seem technical, it is in fact a simple amendment with a significant impact. It will ensure that there is genuine protection against abuse, proper detection of coercion, and effective scrutiny of how the law works in practice. Simply put, it will ensure that deaths from assisted dying under the Bill will still fall within the coroner’s duty to investigate deaths under section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. I will explain why that is important. Like many hon. Members, I have been deeply concerned from the outset about how the Bill is drafted, its workability, and its impact on the NHS and on the lives of vulnerable people up and down the country. To be clear, my view is that one unintended death as a result of the Bill becoming law is one too many. I humbly ask hon. Members who are still considering their position, or who are minded to support the Bill, to consider this point about my amendment carefully: what is an acceptable error rate? Based on the figures in the Government’s impact assessment, which I think underestimates the impact, even a 1% error rate would see a minimum of 13 wrongful deaths in year 1, with 45 per year by year 10. A 5% error rate would see 65 deaths in year 1 and 227 in year 10. A 10% error rate would see 131 deaths in year 1 and 455 in year 10. As I say, I think those are low-ball estimates, but they are nevertheless chilling. If this law is passed, it will be exceptionally difficult to say whether there have been errors or instances of abuse; or, at the very least, any errors picked up will be but a fraction of the true picture, as tragically those who would testify to the fact will already be dead. My amendment (a) to new clause 15 directly addresses that issue. In England and Wales, a coroner will investigate a death when certain legal conditions are met. This duty is primarily governed by section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Judge Thomas Teague KC, who served until 2024 as the chief coroner of England and Wales, notes: “any death arising as a consequence of the ingestion or administration of a lethal substance constitutes an unnatural death which the local coroner is under a statutory duty to investigate”. Clearly, assisted dying meets that definition, and it is right that such deaths be afforded the best possible posthumous judicial scrutiny.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
On the first point, I do not believe that the Bill is strong enough as it stands. On the second point, we are already dealing with the fact that families are not even guaranteed knowledge of their loved one having an assisted death, so I do not think the hon. Lady’s point is entirely to be considered. As it stands, the Bill would disapply the duty of the coroner to investigate in the case of an assisted death that has been carried out in accordance with the Bill’s provisions. New clause 15, specifically, would amend the Coroners and Justice Act to clarify that assisted death does not constitute “unnatural death” for the purposes of the Act. I think it takes an extraordinary leap of imagination not to conceive of deliberately self-administering lethal drugs as anything but an unnatural death.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I completely agree with him. These are the sorts of safeguards that even the promoter of the Bill is saying should be there. I do not think that they are in the Bill and my amendment to new clause 15 would make them much stronger.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I thank my hon. Friend. The statistics I quoted earlier are pretty clear on the point he makes. Let me make some progress. The work undertaken by the coroner is not a box-ticking exercise or a bureaucratic hurdle. In the context of assisted dying, it is an extremely powerful deterrent against abuse and malpractice. Again, to quote Judge Thomas Teague KC, in a letter to The Times on 7 May this year, he said that the removal of “any realistic prospect of an effective inquest...would magnify, rather than diminish, the obvious risks of deception and undue influence”.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I thank the hon. Member and I will come to that point very soon. I will now make some progress; I will not take any further interventions. I struggle to see how removing automatic oversight of assisted deaths squares with a commitment to enact legislation with the “strongest safeguards in the world”. By doing so, the Bill sets a lower bar for scrutiny and review, and creates an information deficit. Put another way, we simply do not know what we do not know. Implementing a novel piece of legislation such as this without ensuring the most robust possible scrutiny of deaths taking place under the Act is astonishing. Under the Bill, assisted deaths would be the outlier, as any other intentionally procured death would automatically be reviewed by a coroner. Why should deaths under this legislation be any different? Requiring automatic scrutiny from a coroner for assisted deaths should not be viewed as an add-on at the end of the process or perhaps just a safety net, although it is that.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
No, I have already said that I am not going take any further interventions. I have been very generous with my time. It is imperative to consider the whole picture, particularly regarding malpractice or coercion—whether that be on the part of medical professionals, families or third parties. In written evidence to the Committee, Dr Rees Johnson, a legal expert from Essex Law School, highlights that, in some cultures, “decision-making is a collective process involving family and community members.”
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
No. Beyond coercion, automatic inquests provide vital opportunities to identify other critical issues that may not otherwise be picked up. Without a coroner’s inquest, there would be no post-mortem examination. This is not merely an academic point; studies have shown that autopsy reveals that one in four cases have been misdiagnosed. Without this oversight, as His Honour Judge Thomas Teague KC, the former chief coroner, notes, there is “no certain means of knowing whether the approved substance has led to a quick and painless death, or a lingering and distressing one, or even whether it had failed to cause death altogether and the deceased had been dispatched by manual asphyxiation or some other unlawful means.” I am not sure whether that could be more clear. The view of experts in this area—both the Royal College of Pathologists and the former chief coroner of England and Wales—is that this Bill’s proposals, as drafted, are not fit for purpose. I strongly urge hon. Members to support my amendment (a) to new clause 15.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I have no doubt that if the right hon. Member gives the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) a moment, she will address it quickly, because even Members who are contributing do not have long.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
As Mr Speaker has already mentioned, in order for everybody to get in—well, in order for most to get in—we need speeches to be shy of six minutes, and interventions to be short. I call Gregory Stafford.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Order. Before Dr Spencer resumes, I note that this has been a well-tempered debate. Let us keep it so. We know our constituents are watching.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Order. The hon. Lady has made it clear that she is not taking interventions at this time.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Order. Before an intervention is taken, may I put it on the record that Members should not be wandering into the Chamber and then very quickly making an intervention? Lots of Members are waiting to speak and to make interventions. Is that the case? Have you been in the Chamber for a while?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Okay, go on.
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
indicated assent.