Parliament needs better employment practices and a recognised trade union for MPs’ staff

The news from the Liberal Democrats regarding Lord Rennard and the alleged sexual harassment of staff and aspiring female MPs comes as no surprise to many who work in the Westminster village. Perhaps due to the macho image or the long hours, Westminster remains a male-dominated environment in which to work, and as politics and power go hand in hand it has been too easy for a minority of senior figures to exploit their power for sexual gratification. After hundreds of years of men-only space it is going to take more than 22% of our MPs being women to shake off all the outdated assumptions of privilege.

No one knows how many staff, caseworkers or researchers have experienced unwanted sexual advances or harassment from their bosses because there is no official complaint route and “grassing” up your own party is the quickest way to end any political career before it’s yet begun. After six years working in parliament I have heard enough accounts to say with confidence this is not a scandal unique to the Liberal Democrats. In that time I’ve seen and experienced it first hand, from being propositioned in no uncertain terms by an unfamiliar member of the House of Lords in a lift to the overheard comments about your appearance. Other incidents I’m aware of have been more than just risqué words, and involved attempts at kissing and groping.

Being young and female working in parliament you learn to grow a thick skin, leave the room quickly when certain parliamentarians enter and take the stairs if certain figures are waiting for the lift. But these are a rogue minority and the vast majority of MPs and Peers, including all those I have worked for, are decent hardworking men and women who are as upset about this as the rest of us.

The problem is what can you do if your boss isn’t one of the good ones? If you are being sexually harassed by your boss there is nowhere to turn. There is no official grievance procedure for MPs’ staff to turn to beyond raising it with your employer (sometimes the person harassing you). When IPSA reformed the expenses scheme, which included paying salaries for MPs staff, they failed to take responsibility for the personnel issues for staff. This is an issue which has been raised time and again by the Unite trade union branch representing parliamentary staff as we seek a recognition agreement and access to fairer employment procedures.

Officially the procedure would be to raise it with your MP in the first instance, so “excuse me would you mind stopping putting your hand up my skirt” and when that doesn’t work approach your Party’s whips. Having asked around I’m not aware of any situation where any Party whip has helped resolve a sexual harassment case. So we can quickly conclude that if you’re being harassed by your employer you’re only course of action is to trawl the w4mp website looking for a new MP to work for.

Now that MPs have a decent budget for employing staff it is time we ensured those staff were given a working environment in which they could feel safe and have an official, effective route of reporting harassment, bullying and other employment malpractice in the knowledge something could be done. Although this wouldn’t stop many of the incidents which happen year in year out at the notorious alcohol fuelled Party conferences when men with power seem to think “it doesn’t count here” and with younger party members keen to make a good impression to secure an often unpaid internship in parliament it is a recipe for disaster.

I hope that the outcome of the publicity around Lord Rennard will be that all parties address their shortcomings when it comes to politics, the route to political power and the exploitation of the party workers. When four out of five MPs are men, if we want to move towards equality we need to make sure the younger women in politics are not terrorised away by powerful men seeking a quick thrill.

Our politics is too important for that.

Cat Smith is the Political Officer of the Unite Parliamentary Staff Branch