Parliament should be a place of hope, not fear and abuse

Personally, I think that anyone undergoing any kind of serious investigation by the police – or by the Independent Complaints and Grievance Service in parliament, where sexual or violent incidences are involved – should be suspended from duties

As sure as night turns to day and the frost rolls in for winter, Westminster is once again facing a crisis of alleged sexual abuse.

I honestly just feel tired. On Thursday I walked around hugging a big cardi to myself, bleary-eyed and sighing at the sheer predictability of events in Westminster: yet another MP had been asked to stay away from the parliamentary estate after allegations of sexual abuse.

I want to make it clear that Westminster is not a dreadful place to work. Well, not for me anyway – I guess I have the kind of privilege that comes with having some measure of power.

When a story emerges about the police investigating yet another MP, it upsets me that every elected official at my place of work is painted as a bullying abuser, with the insinuation that every staff member is cowering in fear. That simply isn’t the case.

Westminster is a place where we change laws to try to protect people. It is a place where I can invite the families of murdered daughters, or children who have suffered abuse to share their story, on the path to changing the world for people like them.

In the last few weeks, I have been moved to tears of pride while sitting in this ancient place with families of murdered women, and shed some big tears for a lovely young man called Ben who, while appearing on TV, spoke about how he had come to the heart of government and changed the law so that children are now recognised as victims of domestic abuse. Scandals make good copy, no doubt, but parliament changes people’s lives. It should be a beacon of hope.

This week, by complete coincidence, members of parliament have been asked their views about excluding MPs charged with violent or sexual offences from the parliamentary estate until any such cases are concluded.

It’s an easy one: of course we should exclude them. But I know how hard it is to get justice; after all, last year only 1.5 per cent of people who came forward and said they had been raped saw their alleged abuser charged.

Personally, I think that anyone undergoing any kind of serious investigation by the police – or by the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme in parliament, where sexual or violent allegations are involved – should be suspended from duties. Political parties should also agree to a standard protocol for suspension when they receive complaints, because at the moment there is simply no consistency. Of the growing number of Conservative MPs being investigated at the moment, some have lost the whip, while others haven’t. There is no transparency as to why.

If we were teachers, we would be suspended pending investigation. When I worked at Women’s Aid I would have been. It’s about safeguarding. It is not an assertion of guilt – it is a precaution.

I can see the argument about vexatious complaints becoming a risk, but surely it is not beyond the wit of man to have a triage system that looks at reasonable grounds for the complaint to progress on the balance of probabilities.

MPs interact with people outside of the parliamentary estate too. Week in, week out I see very vulnerable adults and children as part of my job. Many of them are desperate for my help, and their desperation makes them even more vulnerable.

Since the Chris Pincher story returned to the attention of the media, I have picked up lots of cases from residents in his constituency who don’t feel comfortable asking him for help. I am fairly certain we could set up a similar system in these cases to the one we have when a member of parliament dies in office. Usually a neighbouring MP takes on their staff and case management.

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The problem of what to do in these situations is exacerbated by how long the complaints process takes. Justice delayed is, as they say, justice denied. At the moment it would be really hard to argue for exclusion and suspension from duties in the case of any police investigation because they can take years. The parliamentary system for complaints is not too quick either (although it is worth saying that that is often because of legal interventions and delaying tactics used by some parties). That said, all of this could do with speeding up.

I have, in a past life, dealt as a manager with safeguarding complaints against staff. The outcomes of these cases have been varied, finding in favour of both accuser and accused. In a normal workplace, you would expect this to take a maximum of around 12 weeks. It’s not fun. It’s horrible for all involved. But it’s better than a process that takes years – that is torture. Delays also make it hard to argue for tougher safeguards while the complaint is dealt with.

What a mess it is. And yet there is hope: maybe, just maybe, the reason we get so many stories about allegedly abusive MPs is because this stuff is no longer tolerated. MPs are no worse than they ever have been, but now the bad ones have fewer places to hide. Perhaps I’m kidding myself because of the fatigue and disappointment, but for now I choose to believe that the Palace of Westminster is a place of change and hope. It’s just that some people clearly didn’t get the memo.