Oral evidence: General Election Planning and Services, HC 209
Monday 14 November 2022
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 November 2022.
Members present: Sir Charles Walker (Chair); John Cryer; Michael Fabricant; Mrs Pauline Latham; Giles Watling.
Questions 33-67
Witnesses
I: Marianne Cwynarski CBE, Director General (Operations), John Owen OBE, Director of Strategic Business Resilience, Chris Sear, Director, Members' Services Team, and Kate Emms, Director of Member Engagement, House of Commons; and Rob Sanders, Director of Live Services, Parliamentary Digital Service.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– General Election Planning Group (Marianne Cwynarski CBE, John Owen OBE, Chris Sear, Kate Emms, and Rob Sanders)
Witnesses: Marianne Cwynarski CBE, John Owen OBE, Chris Sear, Kate Emms and Rob Sanders.
Q33 Chair: Thank you for coming to our latest evidence session on general election planning. We have many officers of the House here—five—who are all involved in this process. I hope the general election is not for a few more months, so we can get it absolutely right; others might hope that it comes quicker, and some that it comes a great deal later.
Marianne, we have been doing this inquiry for a few months, and what has come through loud and clear, particularly from former Members who lost their seats, is the “here today, gone tomorrow” mentality. I know that that is a consequence of our electoral system, where a Prime Minister loses on Thursday night, or early on Friday morning, and is out later that afternoon, but what processes are we going to put in place for the next general election, on the morning after the night before—or the week after the night before—to ensure that departing Members are treated humanely and fairly, have access to good advice and to their offices, and do not feel unnecessarily rushed into departing and clearing out their spaces?
Marianne Cwynarski: In 2019, we obviously worked hard to ensure that departing Members were dealt with dignity and kindness. It was a big shift from 2015 and 2017, but there is still scope for doing more. I am going to hand over to Chris, because I know that some planning has been going into this.
Chris Sear: In 2019, once we were aware that Members were not returning, we got in touch with them and invited them down for a meeting within the following week. As the Committee will know, non-returning Members have five days on their pass to clear their office. However, they also have responsibility to their staff and all sorts of other responsibilities as well.
We invited them down to have those discussions. The discussions themselves generally went well, and all the things that needed to be done were done—some direct responsibilities on staffing, for example, needed to be handled, and that cannot be altered.
What we are aware of from the last election, in particular, is that where that discussion took place was a very difficult issue. It was not in the ideal place for non-returning Members—it was in Richmond House, the Committee might remember—and it was not the nicest place either. What we are looking at for the next time is a different location.
We are also trying to work around what we can do virtually with Members, and what we can do in advance, before they come down—most of them, certainly, will have to come down and clear their offices at the very least—so that they are ready when we meet them. Around that, we want to give them more support: staff who can help them, better locations and better up-front information about what might happen. That is a real key for us: for all Members to be aware of what might happen around an election.
Q34 Chair: Chris, I am sorry to cut across you. We do not know when a general election is going to be. I suspect that polling day will be any time between May 2024 and November 2024. There is always mood music in the run-up to a general election that indicates it is happening. When will you start notifying Members of Parliament of the arrangements for the general election?
Chris Sear: Immediately after the election. We will start getting in touch with them on the Friday morning, and then we book them in for a meeting over the course of the following week. Last time, we were doing about eight at a time. Obviously, there may be an issue around numbers, which we do not know, of course, but last time there were around eight happening at any one time. We had staff to sort out digital, HR and so on, and that can be ramped up if we need to.
Q35 Chair: Sorry if I misunderstood what was being said. Members of Parliament should all be advised in good time of the processes if they are leaving voluntarily or they are leaving at the behest of their electorate. Are we going to get that out in the next three months, or six months?
Chris Sear: I think John would like to say something about that.
John Owen: One of the key lessons that we took from 2019 was to do a significant update to the Dissolution guidance and to have that guidance available much earlier. From January 2023, we are moving to a system of doing an annual update to the Dissolution guidance. We will have a version that outlines very clearly what the responsibilities are, what additional support is available from the House and what steps Members may like to start considering. In the feedback from Members who have departed, we recognise there is a particular challenge in managing casework, because Members tend to have such a huge volume of it.
One of the real differences this time is that we will provide a lot more support to Members in managing their casework. We can help them to tidy it up and put much stronger processes in place, which we hope will alleviate one small element of the stress that Members report around the election period. We are standing up those arrangements from January. As Chris mentioned, as soon as Members indicate that they are looking to stand down, we have that very early engagement with them. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot start supporting them from now; we do not have to wait until the election is announced to proactively engage with them.
Chair: Chris, you wanted to come back.
Chris Sear: I wanted to come in briefly to say that my team did not exist at the 2019 election. The Members HR advice service did; it was two people, and that had to be ramped up. I now have a whole team of people who are engaging with Members, and so are other teams. We have a much better opportunity to engage with Members in the run-up to the election, and through the Dissolution guidance, engagement events and so on that John has talked about, so that we should not be in the position that we get to the next election and nobody knows what to do.
Q36 Chair: I have one last question before I bring in other colleagues. I have heard on the grapevine that IPSA is doing some impressive work on its own general election planning. That is a good thing, and it reflects well on IPSA. Can you reassure us, as I am sure you can, that you will be working closely with IPSA to make sure both sets of guidance dovetail?
Marianne Cwynarski: John is the SRO for the next election.
John Owen: Chair, in short, yes. It is one of the things that we have taken and built on from 2015. IPSA is part and parcel of our own election planning, so that, when we issue the guidance, we can be joined up to make it a simpler communication to Members.
Q37 Chair: Fantastic. When it happens, do you think that will be an improvement on 2019?
John Owen: We obviously started that engagement with 2015. At every election we have noticed an improvement, so we would expect it to improve.
Chair: That’s great. Who would like to come in next? I will call Pauline, then Michael and Giles.
Q38 Mrs Latham: Every time we have an election, some Members say they are going to stand down, like Sir Charles and others have already done. As soon as the election is announced, we are told we have got to leave the building—more or less—and we can’t come back in for the whole period. What is the reason why people who are not standing at that election can’t come in and clear their offices during that period of three weeks minimum to six weeks? Would that not facilitate your job so that those who lose their seat can have a bit more TLC about what happens, whereas those who are leaving anyway could do it at leisure during that period?
John Owen: What you have touched on is essentially the greatest challenge that we have. As you have described, we could look at offering more to Members who are departing.
Mrs Latham: Voluntarily.
John Owen: There would be an impact in terms of getting offices ready for the new Members. Where Members have announced they are standing down, the fact that they leave shortly after the start of Dissolution allows us to start preparing those offices for the new Members. If they are occupied throughout the Dissolution, it reduces the number of offices that we can get ready for the new Members to arrive. It is always about that balance, and it is within the gift of the Committee to make recommendations on that.
Q39 Chair: I think Pauline has touched on something. I am standing down voluntarily. I think it would make perfect sense, if it is not already the case—and I am surprised if it’s not—for me to be allowed to come back into the House. I wouldn’t gain any advantage from it, but we could have meetings about redundancy for my staff, clearing out the office and this, that and the other. I shall be well gone—and happily—but Pauline’s point is that my job will continue at full tilt until the day I cease to be an MP, or in other words, when the House dissolves for a general election. Up until that point, I am a Member of Parliament, so it is not like I can say to my constituents, “Well, I’m off now, so for the next eight weeks, you’re on your own.” I hope we can recommend that those MPs who have announced they are departing voluntarily have access to the House of Commons to facilitate an effective and swift closure of their offices. I understand now that that is not the case.
John Owen: Absolutely. We will be directed by the Committee, but I will put on record that there is a risk because it reduces the number of offices that we can get ready for the new Members, when Members who are standing down remain in their offices throughout Dissolution.
Q40 Chair: No, I don’t think we would be remaining in our offices, but we would come in to clear out our offices. When am I going to clear out my office if not at the time of Dissolution?
John Owen: Similar to Members who aren’t returned, I believe that Members who are standing down have the same period at the start of Dissolution. When the House is dissolved, there is limited access for those Members to clear their offices.
Marianne Cwynarski: Five days, Sir Charles.
Q41 Mrs Latham: Five days from when we are all chucked out, or five days after—
Marianne Cwynarski: Five days from Dissolution to clear your office.
Chair: Okay. We might take a look at that.
Q42 Michael Fabricant: John, you were talking about the transition from one MP to another, and casework. I think there is an issue—or a perceived problem—with GDPR, and about whether casework discussed with one MP can then be passed across seamlessly to the successor MP. I wonder whether you could outline how that works. I’m not sure whether it can do anything, but does the House of Commons perhaps have any locus to try to educate the electorate about what a successor MP can do regarding casework from a previous MP? Does that make sense?
John Owen: It does. There are probably two points there, if I can pick them up. Taking the latter point first, engagement in a Member’s experience—whether they are a departing Member or a newly elected Member—is going to be the primary focus of our public engagement. As you said, for Members who are departing, that will involve what that process is like, what they need to do and what constituents can expect during that process.
The actual process for casework to be handed over is one of the other areas where we hope that, by much earlier engagement with Members, we can go through the process that needs to be put in place. In this particular instance, it would just have to be that a constituent has given their informed consent for the casework to be transferred, which allows you to do what you have just described.
What I would say, just for information, is that the other key conversation we are having around casework at the moment—we are having this with the ICO and the Cabinet Office—is to make sure that there are no unintended consequences of the Boundary Commission review, where the actual legal constituency is potentially going to be different in some cases. We are working closely with the ICO to make sure that that does not cause any unintended disruption.
Q43 Michael Fabricant: This will vary, of course, from MP to MP: not just the boundaries, but how an MP works, how organised he or she is, and whether the staff will still be there—which presumably they are not, once an MP stands down or loses his seat—in order to pass the data across.
John Owen: This comes back to the point that the way you gain consent from your constituents can absolutely allow you to pass casework over, but that consent has to be recorded in a specific way. That is why we are keen to work with Members; if this is not already in place, we can help to ensure that the correct form of consent is recorded when casework first comes in.
Q44 Michael Fabricant: So does this mechanism have to be established before a general election? Let’s not take Sir Charles’s case, where he knows he is standing down; let’s talk about other MPs, who expect to win but maybe do not. Are you thinking of asking all Members of Parliament to adopt some process before general elections that would then enable the seamless transfer of information across from their regime—if you want to call it that—to that of the new MP?
John Owen: My understanding is that because that consent has to be gained from the individual constituent, it is not something that we or anyone else can put in place. The constituent has to give permission.
Q45 Michael Fabricant: But they have to be asked for that consent.
John Owen: But they have to be asked, which is why some of the templates we supply to Members from our information compliance team have a template form of consent that allows the process you have just described to happen. That is why, for Members who perhaps have not implemented that, there is still the opportunity for us to do this now. It may well be that, as new bits of casework come in, if Members are not using this particular form of consent, there is still the opportunity to do so.
Michael Fabricant: I wonder how many MPs out of the 650 have actually done it.
Chair: It is important to recognise that every single MP is entirely within their rights to seek the consent of constituents or not—to handle their office as they will. What I do not want to do is get into a situation where every MP feels obligated to write to 2,000 people, because that creates a whole new mountain of work as to what you want to do with the case. There has always been a general understanding that, when an MP changes, the relationship with the constituent starts afresh. I would be reluctant to burden my successor with too many of my regular customers.
Q46 Mrs Latham: As we are locked out of this place and we are not allowed to use our computers, it cannot be done during the election period. If you lose your seat, I do not think you have access to your computer again. Personally, if I thought I was going to lose my seat at the next election, I would not write to everybody and say, “In the event of me losing the election, please would you allow me to pass your casework on to whoever beats me?” You don’t do that. That is sort of saying, “I don’t think I’m going to win.” It is a crazy situation to put us in. No MP is going to do that.
John Owen: What I would say, given the way the template is worded—and I absolutely take your point—is that it is there to give the opportunity for the casework to be passed over if you want.
Chair: Should you want to.
John Owen: On the IT point, you do have access. Rob, could you say any more about that?
Rob Sanders: You will have access to the IT equipment and services for the period of time that IPSA give for their winding-up allowance.
Mrs Latham: Three months.
Rob Sanders: So that is all aligned.
Mrs Latham: You can do it after that, but why would you? You are no longer the MP, so I think you will find nobody will do it.
Chair: This, Pauline, is for individual Members of Parliament to wrestle with should they be confronted with that situation. But it is not prescriptive, I suspect; it is to be done if you want to do it.
Q47 Giles Watling: As an ex-actor I am painfully familiar with suddenly becoming unemployed. We are dealing with people who suddenly enter the realms of unemployment having been, for a period of time, in a relatively secure position. As the Chair alluded to, I am glad to hear that you are doing joined-up work with IPSA in that period of time. How is it going to work? You are going to have a new MP taking on the casework and an MP who is leaving. There is double IPSA going on there; will you be negotiating with ex-MPs around that?
John Owen: I am not sure I understand—
Giles Watling: The ex-MP is wrapping up their affairs and will be charging to IPSA whatever expenses there are, and the new MP will also be charging to IPSA. How does it work? I don’t know.
Chris Sear: As things stand at the moment—IPSA may be looking at that—Members get two months following the date of the election to wind up their office. Obviously, at the same time the new Member will be coming in and starting to set up their office. There is a period where you have a Member closing down their office, and the Member’s staff can work through that period—they are entitled to be paid by IPSA. Obviously, if they know the Member is standing down already, they may make other arrangements. But generally, they can work through that two-month period. In my understanding, the expenses that are claimed by the Member and their office winding up will be charged to an IPSA expense that is not the same as the one the new Member will be using to set up their office. Obviously, IPSA will be looking at that, but the two things are separate.
Chair: There is a winding-up allowance, which is from a separate pot.
Q48 Giles Watling: Does your support taper off, individual by individual, for newly non-elected Members?
Chris Sear: There is a lot of support through IPSA on the financial side throughout those two months. In terms of the support they receive from the House, we would still be in touch with them and they can still use Health Assured, for example, for wellbeing purposes. In terms of more general support, once they have done the work around the redundancy of staff and so on, most of the things they have to do are done. So generally it does taper off fairly quickly after that process has worked. The connection with IPSA is longer because of the financial side of things—as things stand.
Q49 Chair: You have just mentioned something that is really important. Members of Parliament who are in the position of having to make staff redundant can access advice via your team on the appropriate processes to follow—is that right, Chris?
Chris Sear: We can continue giving advice—yes.
Q50 Chair: I think it would be really helpful to have advice beyond the general election, because if you ask most Members of Parliament what worries them the most it is how they deal with their staff, who, if they lose their seat on that Thursday night or Friday morning, will be losing their jobs. I think some good, focused advice and maybe a letter—we can discuss it—is something we need to focus on.
Chris Sear: Yes, of course. Happy to do that.
Giles Watling: May I suggest that goes to office managers as well?
Q51 Chair: Our report will specifically say, “One of the areas of greatest concern to Members of Parliament, in the event they leave or lose their seat, is that there is clear guidance on how best they follow the rules and procedures to deal humanely and satisfactorily with their staff who will have to be made redundant.”
Chris Sear: Absolutely.
Q52 Chair: And they are also protected in law, with their own rights.
Chris Sear: Yes.
Q53 Chair: Now, for general election planning, I know you have said you are working with IPSA—Pauline touched on it. There is IT equipment that needs to be handed back, or potentially there is the option to buy it. Is that all in hand, as regards the winding-up period? Some of the IT kit is provided by the House, isn’t it?
Rob Sanders: Yes, that is right. Most of the equipment is supplied by the House and that needs to be returned. We make arrangements to collect that at the end of the winding-up period, or sooner if you are done with it. It is really important that we get that equipment back; it has been built in a way that makes it usable only with parliamentary accounts, but obviously it has had parliamentary data on it, so it is important that we can dispose of it. If it is relatively new, it can be reused after it has been wiped and rebuilt.
Q54 Chair: Will there be an option for Members to buy IT equipment, as in the past?
Rob Sanders: We have not provided that as a service through Parliament and the House Service. What has happened in the past is that Members have purchased equipment through the same route, but it has been funded through IPSA. They have been entitled to hold on to that equipment. The challenge is that that equipment, once you walk out of Parliament and become an ex-Member, is not something you can just use. It has to be reset to how it would have been if you had purchased it from a shop. That means that we have to remove the software that is licensed to Parliament from it. It is possible.
Q55 Chair: I think, again, it is very important that it is explained to Members of Parliament that there are specific issues around equipment that mean it cannot be bought, acquired or purchased easily if at all.
Rob Sanders: It can be done, but our recommendation would be that we would provide advice and support as to how you would choose a piece of equipment that would be more suitable for you once you have left. Then of course we could provide lots of help with transferring contacts and personal emails and files.
Q56 Michael Fabricant: Can I just ask a quick supplementary? Somewhere in your information to us you said that you are exploring different ways of more quickly clearing data from computers. Can you go into that?
Rob Sanders: There are a couple of things we are looking at at the moment in terms of the provision and return of equipment. What we would like is, once you have finished using equipment, to be able to wipe it down as quickly as possible. That is just good practice. The thing we are more interested in is getting over the position we are in at the moment where some equipment is provided through the House and some comes through the IPSA purchasing. That creates a confusing picture when it comes to returning equipment as to which bits need to come back and which bits need to be disposed of in another way. We are working very closely with IPSA on that. In an ideal world, we would provide all the equipment so it is much simpler for all those factors.
Q57 Michael Fabricant: You did say, which was very reassuring—although I am hoping to be here next time—that you assist in transferring the data from House of Commons machines to private machines.
Rob Sanders: A lot of the data is now stored in the cloud as part of the Microsoft offering. Most of your stuff will be kept on OneDrive. We can certainly give advice on how to transfer that on to an encrypted portable device or computer or something else you have set up. It is difficult for us to transfer that for you, because we don’t know which parts of parliamentary data and personal data you want to keep, but we can certainly provide guidance.
Q58 Michael Fabricant: And how long do you maintain that guidance for?
Rob Sanders: We would normally run that through the winding-up period, which is the two months after the election, but we are pragmatic. We have run it for longer than that before.
Michael Fabricant: Thank you.
Q59 John Cryer: Chris, you mentioned Health Assured. Are they the people who provide the Parliamentary Health and Wellbeing Service?
Chris Sear: No. The Parliamentary Health and Wellbeing Service is within the House and is bicameral. Health Assured is the company we contract with to supply the employee assistance programme for your staff and the individual assistance programme for Members. It is a 24/7 confidential helpline. The Health and Wellbeing Service is also around.
Q60 John Cryer: If someone loses their seat, can they have access to either or both of the services after they have lost, and for how long?
Chris Sear: Health Assured is for three months, I believe. The Health and Wellbeing Service would not let anybody struggle, but I am not sure how long their service would be available to Members. I could certainly find that out.
Q61 Chair: I think that is a very good point John has made. For many colleagues—obviously not all—losing their seat will be dramatic. Some form of support would be a very good idea.
John Owen: I think it is important to note on the support from our health and wellbeing team that if a Member contacts them directly after losing their seat and not being returned, they will be supported and continue to be supported until another appropriate service is in place. We have agreed that for the last two elections and there is not a time limit on that.
Q62 Chair: We will put that in our report because that is a fantastic commitment—thank you for that. It may well be that there is very limited turnover at the next general election, and that everybody who stands and wants to be re-elected is re-elected and we find a new nirvana, but it is possible—just possible, as an outlier—that quite a lot of people will lose their seat. What are we going to do about having a special dedicated area in the precinct—I hate to use the word “welcome” because it won’t be a welcome, but to receive people who will probably be very upset but will have a very limited amount of time to clear their offices? Where will we receive them?
Marianne Cwynarski: The defeated Members?
Chair: Yes.
Chris Sear: I think I said earlier that we are well aware that what we provided last time was not ideal. We are certainly looking for different venues where we can provide support that is not too far away from the Palace, because a lot of Members in the past have told us that they want that connection still. They do not want to feel like they are being moved away the moment it happens and pushed—it is a cliché that is true—behind the bins. We are actively looking for much better accommodation, which we will supply. Where that is at the moment, we are not entirely sure, but it will be better than it was before and not too far away from the parliamentary estate. In fact, it will be part of the parliamentary estate.
Q63 Chair: One of the things we will say in our report is that you should be planning to leave this place the day you arrive. This is not directly in your ambit and remit, but one thing we would like to look at as a Committee, or would like the House to look at, is micro-qualifications and having them accredited. I do not think we are in any way in a position for those to go live. We will probably have to identify some universities and providers that would want to do that, but is that something the House would consider becoming involved in as we look to help people transition?
John Owen: We would absolutely support that recommendation. As we have touched on, we would be likely bring back various options to this Committee and the Finance Committee to discuss in more detail, but yes, in principle. If it is a recommendation, it is something that the House would look to support.
Q64 Chair: To make this fly, we would basically have to get an agreement in principle that it is a good idea to have continuing professional development for Members of Parliament. We would then identify providers—hopefully well-respected universities with accredited courses—so that when people leave here, all those wonderful skills they have around negotiation, problem solving and brokering agreements could be formally captured and recognised on their CV.
Chris Sear: Just to say for the Committee’s benefit, the budget for Member and Members’ staff training transferred to my team on 1 November. We have just kicked off a bit of work looking at what is available across the House. The budget covers certain things, but the House offers a lot of training for Members, and we could certainly feed that into having a look at the overall offering we give to Members. In fact, your previous Clerk is leading on that in my team at the moment. We are starting to do a lot of work around what Member training should look like during the course of the Parliament, and we can certainly feed that in.
Chair: At some stage, we will have to talk seriously about outplacement advice and support. That is what most employers do. I am not criticising you, but most employers, when there is a redundancy situation, secure professional outplacement advice to advise and support their staff into new careers and opportunities.
Q65 Michael Fabricant: Do you feel sufficiently resourced to do all this?
John Owen: I would say that we are in the scope of what we have offered previously. For a lot of what has been talked about today, yes, in short. I think this area about additional support to Members who are not returned or who choose to leave would be the area I would not have concerns about but would want to explore in more detail to ensure that we have the resources available.
Kate Emms: Chris has already made the very good point that his team is a relatively recent development, and we have been doing general election planning for quite some time. My role is also an additional resource since the last general election. I am an official channel between the parties, Members and the House service to ensure that we do our very best by Members at a general election, so John has me as an additional resource this time round.
Q66 Chair: Fantastic. We touched on this about 15 minutes ago, but when I announced that I was leaving, my staff found out and although I did tell them before I told the rest of the world that I was leaving, that put an absolute end date to their jobs. Obviously, I am in the process of supporting them. We are still a long way out and nobody’s panicking yet, but again, when someone expectedly or unexpectedly loses on the night—as Pauline suggested, nobody likes to think they will lose; they always think that there might be a chance that they will win—are we going to have really focused outreach and support for staff?
Chris Sear: Yes, absolutely. In fact, we are already offering that when we are in that circumstance now. We are talking to Members who are announcing that they are standing down, but when there are by-elections and so on, we also support their staff with things such as CV writing, training and so on. Yes, we are looking at what that package would be, and we will obviously come back to the Committee at some point with more detailed information about what that would look like, but the Members’ staff issue is a really important one. As we have said already, they lose their jobs, and they need as much support as possible. We are fully determined to give them that.
Q67 Chair: People in this place are very good at taking umbrage, and we are not immune from taking umbrage ourselves. I think it is really important, though, that in a very neutral way, information is conveyed to staff that in the event of a redundancy situation at the general election—we are not saying you will be made redundant—these are the processes and rules that would apply to you, and the treatment that you can expect and have a right to expect. Does that make sense? If you are on an IPSA contract, you will get three months’ notice and this amount of redundancy pay, based on the number of years you have worked. It needs to be set out on a page of A4, so that they are not suddenly thinking as they wake up, “I’m going to be financially destitute as of Monday morning,” because they are not going to be.
Chris Sear: No. That is absolutely right, and because my team has built up so many channels with Members and Members’ staff, and with Kate and everybody else as well, we have so many more channels to get that information through than we have had in the past. We will certainly use them to make sure that everybody is aware of what is potentially going to happen.
Chair: Thank you. Is there any other Member who would like to ask a closing question?
Michael Fabricant: May I just say that that was very reassuring?
Chair: It was a really strong performance.
John Owen: Can I mention one last thing for the Committee? Something that has greatly enhanced our election planning for the last three elections is having nominated members of this Committee to work with us in more detail and outside the Administration Committee meetings themselves. Michael, you kindly held this role for us previously, and we would very much welcome the same approach this time round as well, if possible.
Chair: If you have any specific requests, we will obviously try to meet those requests. I am certainly a live laboratory, but I am sure there are others who, if time allows, would love to be supportive of this. But I concur with what Michael said: it has been a really reassuring evidence session. Thank you very much for your time.