Michael Fabricant – 2023 Speech on Parliamentary Services for MPs

The speech made by Michael Fabricant, the Conservative MP for Lichfield, in the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

I was fascinated by the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) about the transparency of this organisation, because in many ways it is not transparent. I rather suspect that she has been waiting a long time for the opportunity to say all those things. I am not sure that I agree with all of them, but her point that this place must have transparency was very clear. All of us on the Administration Committee feel frustration at times with the fact that when we do not agree with something, we let it be known, and the Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker), lets it be known, but then it happens anyway. That sometimes causes members of the Committee, and members of the Finance Committee, to think, “Why are we even serving on the Committee?” But you know what, Mr Deputy Speaker, that does not actually have anything to do with the report. The report, which the Chairman spoke about in so much detail, is entitled: “Smoothing the cliff edge: supporting MPs at their point of departure from elected office”.

A lot of praise has been heaped, quite rightly, on all the people who work here. At the risk of being accused of gross sycophancy, I am going to mention the Whips on both sides of the House. I think people outside this place think that all the Whips do is impose discipline, but that is not the case. What they do is partly HR with attitude, as a former Whip once put it. They are also, talking about my former career, the floor managers of this place. If it were not for the Whips—I am looking at Labour, Conservative and SNP Whips—people would not turn up on time and debates would not finish on time. Mr Speaker and Mr Deputy Speaker might try to arrange that, but they are in the Chair. It is the Whips who go scurrying around, making phone calls and sending messages to ensure that Ministers and shadow Ministers are there on time for the work to be done. I am only singling them out because they were not mentioned in all those marvellous comments that my hon. Friend—he should be right honourable—spoke about.

This is an odd place. We want to get people of the finest ability to work here and there are many different types of people who come here. My hon. Friend talks about the loud and the raucous. Occasionally, it is rather nice to be loud and raucous in this place. When I first became an MP—I joined at the same time as you, Mr Deputy Speaker—I remember standing up in the Chamber and giving one or two earnest speeches and asking one or two earnest questions. A marvellous former Member of Parliament in the Press Gallery, Matthew Parris, then a sketch writer for The Times, said, “Michael, why are you like this in the Chamber? You must never forget that this place is theatre. Be theatrical, make your points. Be yourself.” And since I have done that, I have never been promoted! [Laughter.] No, no, I have. It is important that people should be themselves, but we have to be able to attract them in the first place.

Sir Charles Walker

My hon. Friend is raucous and wonderful, but he also does himself a great disservice. He is an expert in technology and has a background in radio. The Committee works so much better for having someone who knows not just how to plug in a PC, but how turn it on.

Michael Fabricant

This is turning into a mutual admiration society, but what is wrong with that occasionally, Mr Deputy Speaker? It is all about friendship, too. That is important in this place.

It is true, and I raised this point with my hon. Friend when he gave his excellent and passionate speech, that we have a duty of care to one another generally in society—there is such a thing as society—and we have a duty of care to Members of Parliament. I was there, I think, for all the evidence sessions—correct me if I am wrong—but reading the report again, drawn up by excellent Clerks, one becomes aware of how distraught and empty people are when they leave here in an involuntary way. Sometimes people leave voluntarily, as my hon. Friend is doing, as in any other organisation. Sometimes they leave because they have performed so badly here that the electorate decide to get rid of them. But more often than not they leave simply because of a national swing which is no fault of the individual Member of Parliament.

There is a rather lovely quote in the report:

“For some Members, coming to terms with their departure, whether through choice or not, could be similar to the grieving process. Dame Jane Roberts told us how ‘That loss…is akin to grief. That is true about all work but…leaving Parliament involves an intensity of emotion that does not often apply to other jobs’. She noted in her research how the majority of those that she had interviewed ‘had grieved the loss of political office in some way, often intensely. In adjusting to a very different life, most had experienced a sense of dislocation. They had initially struggled to find a new narrative about who they were and what they did, and a number had struggled to find employment.’”

It is not that these people are unemployable, as I sometimes say, or that they came here only because they could not get a job anywhere else; it is that if they have dedicated their life to a political ideal or to helping others, they will be emotionally invested in this place. Because of that investment, the movement away—the wrench—is as extreme as a torn muscle or worse, or the bereavement of losing a close relative.

Nick de Bois, a former Member of Parliament, told us:

“Sensitivity is lacking in the whole process.”

We heard evidence of people turning up and being told that they had to clear their office within two weeks. We know why—they have been replaced, and the House authorities have to decide how to deal with the House’s property—but when someone loses their seat after being here for many years, being expected to clear their office is a huge burden when they are grieving over the loss of a lifestyle.

What about staff? We heard evidence from staff who were completely at a loss as to whether they would be able to get a job with another MP. Colleagues already know all this, but it is worth saying. You never know: somebody might read Hansard. Many years ago, a former Chief Whip—a great friend of mine who is now in another place, with whom I had dinner last night, as it happens—said to me, absolutely rightly, “Michael, if you want to keep a secret, say it in a speech in this place and it’ll still be a secret.”

Assuming that somebody will actually read this speech, however, let me say in case people do not realise it that it is Members of Parliament who choose their staff. Members’ staff are imbued with huge trust: trust that they will keep constituents’ secrets and trust in how they help Members. What if there is a big change? In 2019, there were staff who had worked really hard for Labour Members, and it would have been difficult for them to get a job with a Conservative MP. We have a duty of care to them, as well as to Members of Parliament.

One Member said:

“You come out of an election when you are losing the thing that you have given your life to, for however many years. I have taken that as an experience of how I would not want to treat my employees today. It was an experience of what not to do rather than what to do. You immediately had your pass removed. You had to be escorted everywhere, whether it is around that centre or around the building. At moments, it felt like you were a criminal.”

Nick de Bois said that there is

“a huge gap that…the party needs to address”.

I think it is a gap that the House of Commons needs to address. He also said that

“you are cut off overnight. Your phone stops ringing pretty quickly”—

actually, to me that would be a relief. He went on to say:

“Friends are there, but there is not the support that some colleagues need.”

Dame Maria Miller

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the impact on departing Members. Does he share my concern that that impact, which he is describing so eloquently, may also be a massive disincentive for right-minded people to stand for election? As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) has been saying, we need to attract the brightest and the best to this place, but such people generally do not want to set themselves up to fail, or to be in an environment where they may end up being treated in not the most respectful way.

Michael Fabricant

I agree with my right hon. Friend, up to a point. I would argue that the problem is not one of people coming to this place, because they came to this place knowing that it was a risk. You do not become a Member of Parliament thinking you are here as of right. What concerns me more is that people who come here should think that they will be treated decently and that their staff will be treated decently, and that means being treated with kindness and compassion.

That brings me back to something that impressed me hugely. The duty of care is a great principle in English law: “Neither through action nor through inaction should someone cause someone else to be damaged.” We heard about it from members of the armed forces who gave evidence to the Committee.

James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con) rose—

Michael Fabricant

My hon. and gallant Friend wishes to intervene, and I will let him do so in a moment.

Those members of the armed forces talked about the continuing treatment that people who join the forces are given right from the very beginning. The Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, also talked about that in his excellent speech. It is the sort of treatment that we should be giving MPs, and perhaps their staff as well—again, right from the very beginning. We should be giving them knowledge that they can use when they eventually leave, and we all leave at some point. What was it that Enoch Powell said? I am looking at my friends on the Front Bench now! “All political careers end in failure.” It may not be true, but I think it probably is: “failure” in the sense that one leaves a ministerial career eventually.

James Sunderland

I commend my hon. Friend for his outstanding and thought-provoking speech. As Members will know, I served for a long time in Her Majesty’s forces—in the Army—and then left at very short notice to become an MP.

I will be honest: at times I have grappled with comparisons between the two organisations in which I have served. I think that Members do sometimes behave badly here— perhaps there is a lack of team spirit, perhaps people are uncompromising, perhaps people do not behave in the right way—but I am absolutely convinced of the sanctity of what politicians do, and I am also clear in my mind that the vast majority of Members on both sides of the House behave impeccably, are here for the right reasons and always operate in good faith. So my question to my hon. Friend is this: how do we convince people more broadly that politicians are a force for good? How do we convince them that we are here doing a very important job, that we work very hard, and that, actually, our intent, most of the time, is pure and honourable?

Michael Fabricant

I have an answer to that question, deep as it was. Stop watching Prime Minister’s Question Time; instead, watch parliamentlive.tv, and see the work that goes on in Committees and in debates like this, among others. Often there is huge consensus and co-operation between the parties on either side of the House.

The other day, I was present when some legislation was going through Parliament. The Liberal Democrats had tabled an amendment, and it was not a bad amendment, and we accepted it. I was rather amused, I have to say, that the Liberal Democrats looked more shocked than we were. They all started waving their Order Papers as if it were a victory—but the victory was that they had come up with a good idea and the Government had said, “Yes, it is a good idea. We will incorporate it in law.” And they did. That is the sort of thing that people need to see: that Parliament is a thoughtful place, and that on the whole, as my hon. Friend has just said, we strive to work together, and we strive to do what is best for the British people, and indeed for others, too, outside the United Kingdom, whether it be in war-torn Ukraine or in developing countries elsewhere in the world.

Nevertheless, the House has a duty of care to ensure that Members of Parliament can do their job as best they can by restructuring the existing systems, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke so marvellously explained, and by attracting people here by showing care for the time when they will eventually leave this place. The Daily Mail, and one or two other newspapers and one or two broadcasters were saying, “This report says we should be giving hundreds of thousands of pounds to Members of Parliament when they leave.” No, the report does not say that. But redundancy rules do exist for ordinary companies and for those who work in the civil service. For all the reasons I have explained, our job is far more volatile than those careers, because we can lose our job for reasons that have nothing to do with our own ability, or lack thereof.

Our redundancy payments should be the same as those in other sectors. Is that unreasonable? The press might say so; I would say it is just natural justice, and that is all the report asks for. I hope that people will read it and that the House of Commons Commission—we do not know what exactly it gets up to—reads it. I hope that Mr Speaker, who is very imaginative and for whom I have the highest respect, reads it. More importantly, though, I hope that something is done about it.