Political parties are on course to hand over responsibility for examining allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct by MPs to parliament’s independent investigator.
A parliamentary committee is preparing to endorse proposals to refer complaints about MPs’ misconduct to the Independent Complaints and Grievance System (ICGS), instead of letting political parties deal with them.
Sources on the modernisation committee, which is considering reforms to parliamentary procedures and standards, told the Guardian it was supportive of the change. Unlike select committees, MPs on the modernisation committee are appointed by their party whips.
Under the proposal, political parties would defer any complaints of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct against MPs to the ICGS, which was set up in 2019 after Westminster was rocked by the #MeToo movement.
Proponents hope it will standardise the complaints system and boost confidence after a succession of misconduct scandals involving both Labour and Conservative MPs in the past few years.
The ICGS deals with alleged cases of bullying, harassment, or sexual misconduct on the parliamentary estate, in constituency offices or while undertaking parliamentary work.
Lucy Powell, the Commons leader who chairs the committee, signalled her support for the proposal in a speech to the Institute for Government last May. In her memorandum published by the committee in September, Powell said one of the committee’s priorities should be “to join up all relevant actors, including the political parties, to ensure members and all those who access parliament feel safe and supported”.
“Paul Kernaghan’s recommendation that complaints made to political parties should be brought into the scope of the ICGS is a key example of how this join-up can be accomplished,” she wrote.
Kernaghan concluded in a review of the ICGS in the spring that when it came to misconduct by MPs, internal party complaints systems were “redundant and undesirable”. He noted a “striking lack of confidence voiced by most consultees that party disciplinary processes can deliver effective outcomes, not least timely or appropriate ones”.
He recommended that “an individual who seeks to make a complaint to a political party and whose allegations fall within the scope of the ICGS should be directed to the ICGS”.
He added that with the ICGS director, the chief whips of each party should jointly agree and publish what steps they will take when they receive an allegation that falls within the ICGS’s scope.
A spokesperson for the House of Commons said they could not provide a running commentary on the modernisation committee’s work.
The committee, which closed its call for evidence on 17 December, has received hundreds of recommendations across a range of areas for reform including MPs’ working hours and rules around second jobs. It expected to publish this evidence in mid-January.
The GMB union’s MPs’ staff branch has called for the introduction of a centralised HR system so that parliamentary researchers are no longer directly employed by their MPs.
Jenny Symmons, chair of the branch, said of the plans to give the ICGS greater scope: “This is a hugely welcome step. Whether an incident happens in parliament, a constituency office or a social venue, victims must have avenues to report and perpetrators must be held to account. Abuses of power are widespread in our working community and not limited to within Westminster’s walls.”
“In the GMB union we will continue to push for the strongest rights and maximum protections for staff working for MPs, including through campaigning to change our employment structure. In the meantime, strengthening and expanding processes such as the ICGS is vital to providing dignity and security at work.”
