Modernisation Committee
Tuesday 13 May 2025
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 13 May 2025.
Lucy Powell (Chair); Mr Alex Barros-Curtis; Wendy Chamberlain; Sir Christopher Chope; Sarah Coombes; Marie Goldman; Paulette Hamilton; Joy Morrissey; Chris Vince.
Questions 18-40
I: Harry Gable, MPs’ staff and representative for GMB; Sunara Bint Ali, MPs’ staff and representative for Unite; Esther Webber, Journalist, Politico; and Dr Mike Everett, Select Committee Clerk, House of Commons
Witnesses: Harry Gable, Sunara Bint Ali, Esther Webber and Dr Mike Everett.
Chair: Thank you all very much for coming. First, I will introduce myself, followed by the rest of the Committee members. I am Lucy Powell, Chair of the Committee.
Mr Barros-Curtis: Good morning. I am Alex Barros-Curtis, Member of Parliament for Cardiff West.
Paulette Hamilton: I am Paulette Hamilton, Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington.
Sarah Coombes: I am Sarah Coombes. I’m the Labour MP for West Bromwich, and Lucy’s PPS.
Joy Morrissey: Joy Morrissey, MP for Beaconsfield.
Sir Christopher Chope: Chris Chope from Christchurch.
Chris Vince: Chris Vince, MP for Harlow.
Marie Goldman: Marie Goldman, Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford.
Wendy Chamberlain: Wendy Chamberlain, MP for North East Fife. I am also the Lib Dem Chief Whip.
Q18 Chair: Great. I think we let you know in advance that I was going to ask each of you to make some opening remarks, if you are happy to do that, about your experiences and what you think this Committee needs to hear and know for our inquiry on accessibility. Esther, shall I start with you?
Esther Webber: First, thank you very much for inviting me. I will open by saying that my experience with accessibility in Parliament has been twofold. On one level, it has been personal, as I am a disabled member of the parliamentary community. I am a journalist—I work in the Press Gallery for Politico—so there is that level on which I engage with Parliament and the environment here every day, trying to navigate it and make it work for me. On another level, I also cover Parliament as part of my job, and a lot of the reporting I have done to date has been on Parliament as a workplace—in many circumstances, so that is about issues of bullying and harassment in Parliament, but also the physical environment.
In both of those experiences, I, like many of you, have heard stories about ways in which Parliament doesn’t work for various members of the community or makes their jobs harder. I think that both from my own experience and from talking to others, that is the main issue that needs some thought: it is when Parliament and the conditions here are actually making it harder for people to do their jobs, even at the centre of the greatest institutions in the UK. That is the tension that we will probably speak about some more today.
Chair: Thank you. We will be looking at some of the physical aspects, as well as some of the procedural aspects, and ways of working as well, hopefully.
Sunara Bint Ali: Hello. I am Sunara. I am a member of staff for an MP. I am neurodivergent. I like to use that term, as opposed to Asperger’s. I feel that with the term Asperger’s, there is a lot of stigma. There has been a bit more attention to neurodivergency, but I don’t think people fully grasp what it means, and how people like me feel and how we work in office environments. To be honest, I masked my neurodivergency for a very long time. It is only in the past couple of years that I have felt the need to be a bit more authentic and true to myself—probably because I am a mum now. It is very important to lead by example, don’t you think?
Because I have been masking, it has been quite difficult for my employers to know exactly what I am going through, but I feel that there aren’t enough discussions among employers and staff so employers do not know enough. There is a learning process, and having this sort of Committee will create a platform for us, as neurodivergents, to speak to people and also teach you what it means.
In my experience, some adjustments have been made, but they are quite limited, because people do not understand the need for more adjustments to be made. For example, lighting is an issue. It is not that I have an eyesight problem—my eyesight, thankfully, is really good—but we get over-stimulated very, very quickly. When there are a lot of people and a lot of noise, we get over-stimulated. It is a bit like having a can of an energy drink; we get very hyped. Those are some of the challenges that someone like me has to face every day.
Although I work from home day a week, I am mostly in the office. I work quite condensed hours, but even during that period of time I am very stimulated, so that by the end of the week I am burnt out. People do not understand that burning out is a physical thing. When I go home on a Friday, there are no movie nights with my little girls; I am literally passed out on the sofa, every Friday. I cannot enjoy the evening because of the whole week’s overstimulation. That is how it is every single week. It is actually a physical thing. I do not think anyone understands just how difficult it is to be overstimulated and burnt out.
Chair: That is very helpful. Thank you. We look forward to hearing more about that shortly.
Harry Gable: I want to say, to begin, that I am grateful to the Committee for the chance to speak, and for the prioritisation of this issue. I know that this inquiry came out of a survey of a lot of Members’ staff and House staff. It is quite vindicating to know that there is a parliamentary Committee that cares about this issue, so I am glad that you are hearing from us.
I have worked on parliamentary estate for four and a half years, directly on the parliamentary side for a senior Labour MP and Select Committee Chair. For obvious reasons, I will speak mainly to the physical barriers that I have experienced as a staff member on the estate, which have been numerous. I will get into them, but the main thing that I am here to convey is that disabled staff have a lot of potential and value to add to the whole political discourse.
This place is where I dreamed of working, but there is a real difference between what you assume would be the reality in a place like this and the actual reality. You assume that access standards will be taken seriously, and that this would be the place where you can do your job free of impediments. I know that there are endless people behind us, and some here today, that want to be in this position. I hope that their experience will be easier than mine. It is a real privilege to work in this place and I am passionate about trying to make sure that it is as accessible as it can be for the next generation, for people in my kind of circumstances who might aspire to be where I am today.
Chair: Thanks very much, Harry. That is the aspiration of all of us, which is why we are pleased to be doing this inquiry. Thank you for coming along and being part of it. You make a really good point: we make the laws for other businesses and workplaces to follow, and perhaps we are not totally living up to those ourselves.
Dr Mike Everett: Good morning, everyone. I am Mike Everett. I am a House of Commons Clerk, so I am an employee of the House of Commons. My role is basically to provide impartial procedural advice to Members of Parliament. I currently work as the Clerk of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, but I have worked for the House since 2012 in a variety of roles in procedural offices, such as the Public Bill Office, and on a variety of Select Committees. I suffered an accident in 2017, so I am a wheelchair user. I am unable to stand or walk independently; I have to use a wheelchair to get around at all times. So I have experienced working for the House as both someone without a disability and, for the last eight years, someone with a disability. I should also say, for the benefit of the Committee, that although I am an employee of the House, I am speaking in a personal capacity. I am not representing the House of Commons, or speaking on behalf of the House administration in any way.
I start by saying that I have always found the House of Commons, as an employer, to be very supportive of me personally, as a member of staff with a disability. I have always had very understanding and supportive colleagues and line managers, and all the Members that I have worked with have always been very supportive and understanding.
If we are talking about physical accessibility, though, I think that the current parliamentary estate poses quite significant challenges for wheelchair users like myself. Those act as barriers not just for staff but for Members with disabilities and visitors who come on to the parliamentary estate. I am sure you are all aware that the Palace itself is not a particularly wheelchair-friendly building. Because it is a 19th-century building, that is kind of understandable, but I would emphasise to the Committee that, as a wheelchair user, I find many of the more modern buildings that make up the parliamentary estate very challenging to navigate in a wheelchair, and that is more difficult to understand.
For example, the building that we are in today, Portcullis House, has lots of things about it that make it difficult for me to navigate, such as lifts that break down quite frequently and take a long time to be repaired. There is only one lift that gives you direct access to the Palace, so if that is out of order, to my mind, you have to leave the building to get across to the Palace. If that were a Member with a disability, that takes them outside the secure perimeter, which is potentially an issue. You have very heavy doors on most of the rooms in Portcullis House, including the publicly accessible Committee rooms. Even some of the accessible features that we have, such as automatic doors, do not always work; for instance, I tried one this morning and it did not work.
There are lots of issues with the current parliamentary estate. Individually, you might say that each of those is understandable—lifts do break down—but when you look at them collectively, it builds up a collective picture and suggests that we have an issue with accessibility on the estate. It is something that Parliament should perhaps be aiming to do better on, so I am really pleased that the Committee is looking at this area.
Chair: Thank you very much. We have various panels; we have heard from current and former MPs, and we have yourselves today as representatives of different staff who work here. We are also hearing from some colleagues from the House of Lords, where in some cases they have made better adaptations. We will then be bringing in the senior House authorities to relay some of those concerns to them. We will talk about some of the physical things first and then move on to the procedural. I also want to say there are tributes to a former of member of staff in the Chamber at 12.30 pm, so Wendy and Joy will both be attending that. They are not being rude; it has come up only this morning.
Q19 Wendy Chamberlain: It is interesting; I usually reflect, when I am having conversations with constituents, on the fact that I do 12,000 to 14,000 steps a day here, because I am going back and forth across the estate. For my physical health, that is a good thing, but it really demonstrates how much we have to use the building and move across it. To hear about those accessibility issues is really important. I have a general question. Obviously, Sunara and Harry, you are working for MPs; Esther, you work for an external organisation, and, Mike, you work for the House. Do you feel that you have been able to talk to your employers about your accessibility requirements, and have they been supportive in that respect?
Esther Webber: I was going to say that obviously I work for an external organisation. As is usual with any employer, a part of the hiring process was them asking about my access needs. A potential gap at the moment is any conversation between the House authorities and external organisations that employ people here. Some disabled Members have benefited from the support of the House services, which induct them and see where their needs might be.
Q20 Wendy Chamberlain: And that is not something that you have experienced?
Esther Webber: No, not that I can recall. To be frank, one of the biggest challenges for me is using the Press Gallery.
Wendy Chamberlain: I was going to say that the Press Gallery itself is trickier to get to.
Esther Webber: On a daily basis, and those are not things that my employer would be able to address, so that is what the case has been for me personally.
Q21 Wendy Chamberlain: So it is potentially about how we strengthen that House relationship with external organisations that have people here. I suppose that is true for different parties as well.
Sunara, do you work generally in your MP’s constituency office or do you come into Parliament? What is the accessibility like there?
Sunara Bint Ali: I work in the constituency office. It is quite a small environment, and there is quite a large group of us who work in one room. In my case, there have been some adjustments made. I did not disclose my neurodivergence when I first started working here because, at the time, it worked for me. We were remote working, so no one knew—or needed to know—how I felt or what adjustments I needed. However, when it came to moving to the constituency office, that it is when I felt that I had to disclose it because it was not going to work for me.
I was grateful for some adjustments. I received coaching, I have a set desk that I work from and I work from home one day a week. However, further requests were not granted due to constituency needs and the needs of the MP and so forth. I have been given headphones, but I am sure everyone knows that having headphones on all day does not work, especially when you are working with a group of people—you have conversations, naturally, so it is just not practical. Although I benefit from noise-cancelling headphones, having them on from 9.30 until I leave just does not work. It is physically very difficult to cope with. So I have had some adjustments made, but not all.
On remote working, to say we were grateful for the pandemic is not the correct term, but it helped people like me. It was the first time in my entire life when I felt, “Oh my God. I can stop working part-time now. I can actually work full-time.” And I was able to work, because we are creatures of routine. We love routine. I could work non-stop if I wanted to, but the constituency office has set me back and I have had to reduce my hours, which is a shame because I genuinely love my job.
Q22 Wendy Chamberlain: It is about that balance of what adjustments are reasonable, but sometimes getting the work done can be challenging. Harry, you and I were in the Administration Committee group in the last Parliament.
Harry Gable: We were—way back when.
Wendy Chamberlain: What has it been like for you in terms of the adjustments you have needed in Portcullis House and elsewhere to do your role?
Harry Gable: It is a really perceptive question. Perhaps the most important area to start with is how the employer has been. That brings me to my central point, which is that Parliament as a whole is a patchwork. Just speaking about the House of Commons, there are 650 different MPs. I am very fortunate in that I have worked for the same Member for four and a half years. There is a reason why I have not moved: I have felt supported by my Member and backed to do what I know I can do in that role.
It is a real patchwork of provision, though. If you take any given subsection of 650 employers in the country, there will be good ones and bad ones, and variable ones. My main point, speaking as one of a Member’s staff, is that there is a lack of systemic accessibility support. It is left to whether you have a good Member or a bad Member—well, not a bad Member.
Wendy Chamberlain: Perhaps less good. We need a consistent base.
Harry Gable: Yes, basically. We also need to be realistic about the fact that MPs do not usually follow the conventional career path of progressing through management. Not all MPs are experienced people managers, and you are suddenly put in this position where you are responsible individually for the welfare of potentially up to eight people. You are making recruitment decisions in that environment, and the life of a parliamentarian is extremely busy. You cannot necessarily afford to think about whether every possible need of your staff is being considered—and it should be, obviously.
Q23 Wendy Chamberlain: And they are working in a space that, in the same way as Esther described, the individual MP is not responsible for.
Harry Gable: Yes, exactly. To give you a precis of my experience in the House of Commons, I came in on the Speaker’s parliamentary internship scheme in 2020. The scheme was set up by the previous Speaker, John Bercow, and was explicitly designed to get people from under-represented backgrounds into Parliament and working with Members and staff. It was a nine-month internship scheme. I only remember this because it made me feel very encouraged when applying for it: it said that disabled people were particularly under-represented and encouraged to apply. I thought, “Okay, great. If that is written down, then it must mean that they have done some thought at the back end.”
I went through this highly competitive recruitment process. As I said in my intro, it was literally my dream job to work for an MP and I was delighted to get the job. I was so excited to move down to London. Once I got the job, it was very clear that there had been no pre-thought on the part of the Commons itself. At that point, I was an employee of the House of Commons, not my Member, because I was an intern in a registered scheme. There was no real forethought on the part of the House as to what it would mean to have a wheelchair user working on the parliamentary estate.
To give an example of that, my office manager suggested a walkabout before I started, so I came up to London a month before to walk through the route between Portcullis House and my office, which was then in Norman Shaw South. It took my manager to propose that to actually point out that there were four sets of doors, including a disabled toilet, that were not automated. There was no way I could get through them independently because they were all pull doors—I can get through push doors because I can just ram through them, but I cannot get through pull doors.
To get back to the heart of your question, if it hadn’t been for the fact that my office manager at the time was thinking ahead and proactive, nothing about the House, despite it having a dedicated diversity and inclusion team, would have captured that need. The net result of that was that the House was asked for those four sets of doors, including a disabled toilet—which I emphasise because it is an essential need—to be automated. But it took until 13 months after I started in the job for all of those four doors to be completed.
I need to be clear at this point that I do not blame any individual for that failure. Everybody was collectively horrified by the situation. But the reality of the House of Commons bureaucracy is that it took 13 months to provide me with the ability to go to the toilet or get in and out of my office unaided. You will know as Members that you sometimes have staff that stay later than others—people have different work patterns and sometimes someone needs to stay late. I was in a position 13 months in where I physically could not be the last person out of my office or the first person there in the morning, because I could not get into my office without the door being automated. I had some experience of this before in local government—also public sector—and when I got that job, the requisite doors to the toilet and my office were automated in a week. It took 13 months here. I want to emphasise this: that is not the fault of anybody individually.
Chair: To be honest, given some of the other things that we have heard, 13 months is quite quick.
Q24 Wendy Chamberlain: It goes back to the systemic aspect. There is a very positive scheme to attract people from different backgrounds, ethnicities and disabilities into Parliament, but not necessarily thought about the consequences of who they might recruit into that scheme.
Harry Gable: Yes. I am aware that I have taken up quite a lot of time, but if I can quickly pick up on that point, it is really important to recognise that the intention of the House is good but there is no thought about the reality. The fact that it took 13 months—my initial internship was nine months long. Luckily, my Member had the financial capacity to take me on as a full-time member of staff and thought I was worthy of that. If that had not been the case, my dream job, which was a nine-month internship in Parliament, would not have even got off the ground. I would have spent that entire internship being followed around by a colleague, which is literally what had to be done every time I wanted to go to lunch or to the toilet.
I do not think there would be that level of passive acceptability for any other group in society. If you were to say to any other group in society, “You cannot independently enter or exit your office or go to the toilet,” I think there would be collective outrage. The outrage would be all over social media. It would be everywhere. Yet what I had to experience, and what countless other people, I am sure, have had to experience—and what countless people that do not even apply to work in Parliament will experience—is that everybody is morally opposed to access barriers but there is a kind of passive acceptance of them because that is just how things are. It is particularly acute here, to go back to the point that Mike made very powerfully. Parliament itself—the Palace—is very old. We accept that. We accept that there are access barriers there. I am not an unrealistic or impractical personm but Portcullis House was opened this century.
Chair: It is unforgivable, really.
Harry Gable: My office is in Norman Shaw South. While it may be listed, it is equally not a historic building. There is no concrete excuse for why that should happen.
Chair: Mike, do you want to add anything to that?
Q25 Wendy Chamberlain: I also want to ask about the security aspect that you mentioned. How much of a barrier are the security measures on the estate, Mike?
Dr Mike Everett: We need security, so I accept that there has to be that trade-off. The main entrance to Portcullis House for wheelchair users is the accessible entrance facing the Thames. That can only be opened for me to get in and out when armed security is present. I understand that—that is why we have it there—but I often have to come on site quite early for a Select Committee meeting or leave quite late and that entrance is I think only open from 8 am to 8 pm. When I come in early for Select Committee meetings, like the one I had this morning, I have to come in via the Palace. Someone with the greatest accessibility need is being made to go much further than everyone else. There is a passholder entrance immediately next to the accessible entrance that I think passholders can get in through before 8 am quite easily because they do not need armed security present there. To my mind, there is not quite parity of access to the estate for wheelchair users and people with disability. It is not security’s fault—I understand why that is there—but I think it is an interesting point.
Wendy Chamberlain: I am thinking of stuff like even getting up to the pass reader—and, Harry, just the negotiations when you came in about getting your chair into the right place. It made me think of the accessibility around the estate. Thank you all.
Q26 Marie Goldman: Thank you for sharing. This is really important and powerful. Sunara, this is quite a personal question, so if you do not want to answer it, please don’t, but I would like to understand a bit more. You said earlier on that you mask a lot. I wonder if you would be willing to share an example of where you have masked so that we can understand how you would experience it if you were not masking. It is just so we can understand a bit more, but if you do not want to answer, I completely understand.
Sunara Bint Ali: No, I am here to talk about this. Masking can be very different. I can be quite blunt and be very honest. Say you were wearing a colour and you came up to me and said, “Does it suit me?” I would probably say, “No, it doesn’t suit you,” but I have been able to mask and say, “No, you look really pleasant.”
Chair: You could be a politician!
Sunara Bint Ali: These are just a few of the things. Another one is lighting. Here, the lighting is fine, but I know that by the end of the day my blood pressure will be going up. It is a physical issue. My blood pressure will be going up, my eyes will be burning and I will not be able to do much for the rest of the evening. These are just some of the things I have been masking.
I am very careful in how I talk to people. That is not me being inauthentic. It reflects that sometimes honesty is not always perceived well, so I am just mindful of how I talk to people. Working from home helps. When I talk to colleagues on Teams, for example, I don’t do small talk—I don’t like small talk. That is an area that I struggle with. When someone asks, “Have you watched this movie?” I am like, “I don’t want to talk about this.” But I actually do watch certain TV series and some movies, even though I do not want to, just so that I can actually have conversations.
My background is politics and religion, and those are the areas I know very well. If I could, I would talk about those two areas all the time, but I know that that is not how the world works. To fit in, I talk about different things. I learn about things and read about things that people would like to talk about. I watch soaps at times; I hate them, but I watch them just so that I can converse with people without them thinking, “Gosh, she’s so weird.”
Chair: Thank you. That is helpful. We are getting loads of really good evidence and experiences from you. We have a few other questions on the physical aspects of the estate, and then we will try to get on to some of the procedural ways of working, so come in when you have something that you want to offer.
Q27 Chris Vince: Thank you all for coming; this is really interesting. I was struck by what Harry said: if we do not get this right, a whole group of really talented people will be put off from working here. We would be the lesser for that.
Some of you have answered my question already, but perhaps you might have more examples of how a lack of reasonable adjustments, or the physical estate, have made your job more challenging. The example you gave, Harry, of not being able to be the first person or the last person at work, and that having a massive impact on your shift pattern, was really interesting, but I wonder whether there are any other examples.
Dr Mike Everett: I have an example of the physical estate being a challenge for me as a Clerk compared with non-disabled Clerks, and that is working in the Commons Chamber itself, which is quite an inaccessible space for a wheelchair user. When I say working in the Chamber, I mean as a Clerk at the Table, in front of the Speaker. The gap between the Table of the House and the Front Benches on either side is really narrow and difficult to get a wheelchair down, especially when the Front Benches are busy. Also, the Table of the House itself is on a raised dais that is about a foot high.
I have done it in the past. There was a period when I was able to do it, but I find it physically challenging to do and, if I am being honest, quite intimidating. I have not done it in recent years as a result of that. I have to transfer from my wheelchair on to one of the seats at the Table—that is about a foot and a half. When I say “transfer”, what I mean is that, because I cannot put any weight through my legs, I have to use my upper body strength and arms to lift and drag myself from my wheelchair up on to a chair on the dais. I am obviously quite worried about falling, interrupting proceedings and things like that.
Then, my wheelchair gets taken away and put at the back of the Chamber, so when I am at the Table, I am immobile and unable to undertake the full range of responsibilities that Clerks would do. For instance, I could not administer a Division, because you have to get up to get the slips from the Tellers, and then you have to do the whole thing in reverse to get out of there. I find that quite physically challenging and I am always quite conscious that I could fall or slip or something like that and disrupt proceedings in the Chamber.
That is a good example of the physical estate, because that job is something that, as a Clerk, I want to be doing. You want to be clerking in the Chamber, but it is more difficult and more challenging for me to do as a wheelchair user.
Q28 Chair: Do you think that could limit your career advancement on the clerking side of things? That is a really good example.
Dr Mike Everett: It is definitely a barrier, I think. We have got lots of very talented people who work in Parliament, and if you are a Clerk, everyone tends to get very similar experiences. We tend to get circulated around and work in procedural offices and also on Select Committees and things like that. Everyone has got very similar experiences, and one of the experiences you do want is working in the Chamber. That is what you aim for as a Clerk. I have been able to do it—I should make that clear—but I found it quite difficult, so I have not done it as much as I might have done.
Chair: It sounds very unpleasant.
Esther Webber: I would echo that from the Lobby. Again, it is just one aspect of the job, but physically getting into the Press Gallery, which is high above the Chamber, is very precarious and frankly sometimes a bit risky. I can do it, but it is sort of a managed risk and therefore I do tend to minimise the occasions on which I go there, which is a shame because you are not getting the full experience and the full force of the Commons debates.
Q29 Chair:And it is a key part of your access as a Lobby passholder to be able to soak in the atmosphere and spot things that are going on that you cannot see on the screen. Do you find that that limits your career opportunities or the way in which you can cover things, or are you just conscious of it yourself?
Esther Webber: I wouldn’t say it limits my career opportunities; it is more that it can limit my reporting a bit from what it could be, and I think that is a shame.
Q30 Mr Barros-Curtis: Drawing on those couple of examples, it strikes me that, rather than fostering an inclusive environment, it is actually exposing yourselves, because it is drawing attention. The example you used, Mike, of physically having to lift yourself into a chair—and your example, Esther—I guess in a public sense is actually drawing attention to the difficulties and challenges you are having as a result of these access limitations, and that runs counter to everything that we are meant to be doing here in Parliament. Rather than being inclusive, it is actually—I don’t want to put words in your mouth; I am curious what you would say—exposing you and making you prominent in that moment, which has the complete opposite effect of what we should be here to do.
Harry Gable: That is a really important point. I will start by saying that for anybody, whether able-bodied or disabled, Parliament is a very intimidating environment to enter. I am sure even MPs feel it when you first come in.
Chair: Absolutely.
Harry Gable: As a disabled member of staff, certainly, you are very aware of your difference in this environment. I now have the benefit of four and a half years’ experience and I have a supportive Member, so a lot of this has changed, but when I first started, I was very aware of the perception that the bar I had to reach to be deemed capable was slightly higher, not because of anybody being actively discriminatory but just because of the fact that I stand out in this environment and there is a need to prove that you can do this job.
In that context, there is a bit of a contradictory dynamic in the fact that asking for the support you need to be able to do the job is a hard thing to do, and this is where I would put it back on the House authorities to be more proactive. You feel like every time you make the disability the focus of what you are doing, you are slightly playing into the fact that they have employed you and you are different. It shouldn’t be this way, but it makes you feel less capable because you are asking for support.
As an example for the reasonable adjustments question that you kindly asked, it is very hard to navigate and, certainly as Member’s staff, it does depend a lot on the Member backing you and the Member’s office backing you. I described my doors experience, but I waited about 18 months to ask for a water cooler, because I could not independently get to the kitchen to fill up my water bottle. I wanted to be able to get water by myself, because it is something I can do if I have access to an accessible cooler.
The reasonable adjustments framework bounced into place straightaway and they said, “Yes, we can give you this.” They could give me the cooler, but not the ongoing supply of water. I was then told that claiming for the water would bounce on to my Member’s expenses. If you are going to give me a cooler, surely the water has got to be part of that as well.
As you will know, Chair, and as everybody here will know, we live in an age where MPs’ expenses are rightly scrutinised to the nth degree. I was in a position where I did not want it to be a headline that my MP had claimed for whatever it would be—£1,500 of water—because the truth would not cut through. It would just go down as a mark on their record. The reality was that it was just to provide water for me.
In the end, we won that battle but the reasonable adjustments framework—to come directly on to your question—could be a lot more proactive and common sense.
Q31 Chair: That is really helpful. What you describe strongly echoes what we heard from Members and former Members about not wanting to make themselves feel different and asking for different requirements. These should be things that should be brought forward for them.
Dr Mike Everett: One thing I wanted to mention to the Committee about physical access that I was not really aware of before I was disabled is that it also has quite a big mental load for disabled people. What I mean by that is, as Harry has articulated, you have to think about so many more things when you are disabled than a non-disabled person does, every single day.
When I commute into work, there are multiple points at which my journey could be disrupted and stopped as a result of accessibility. Then, when I get on to the estate, I might not even be able to get into the building if the accessible entrance is out of order.
Once you are on the estate, if you have meetings on a different part of the estate, you have to think, “How am I going to get to that meeting? There is no step-free access, so I will need to get that lift, but that lift doesn’t take me all the way to where I need to get to. I need to change and get a lift further down. What am I going to do if the lift is out of order?” It is that sort of thing. You need to leave a lot earlier and factor in more time to travel around the estate.
People with disabilities have all those sorts of things in their head and have to think about that all at the same time as also doing the day job well. That is something I really was not aware of until I became disabled. The physical estate is the biggest contributor to that mental load, so anything that can be done to improve physical access would help not only in the physical sense of getting around but to alleviate some of that worry and mental load that people deal with.
Q32 Sarah Coombes: We really appreciate your honesty and insight about this, which came up very strongly in the Member submissions and is clearly just an issue across the board. You are all saying that individual people have good will, but the best will in the world is basically pointless if it takes 13 months to get doors that are workable. My question is—you have raised this a bit—about whether you feel that there is really a proactive drive from the House authorities, or is it always just you having to raise stuff and them reacting, and reacting very slowly?
Also, if you need something to be changed, do you know where to go? Is there a single point or are you having to raise it with five different sets of people and go through huge hoops and processes to just get the basic things that you need to do your job and make the estate accessible for others?
Esther Webber: I would say that I am not aware of a point of contact that I could raise these things with. The thing that affects me most routinely is lifts being out of order and not being able to get into the office. Generally, I find out about that from the Press Gallery WhatsApp group. There isn’t anyone who is informing people who aren’t able to access their office in that eventuality. I think the answer to that is definitely that there are big gaps. I think that has partly arisen because of the patchwork that Harry mentioned.
I also wanted to mention that I do not want to act as if we are the first generation of disabled people to work in Parliament. There have been disabled staff before; there have been many disabled Members before. I think most of those people coming in have had to reinvent the wheel every time and set up their own workarounds, rather than there being an established system or process of the kind that I think you are alluding to.
Q33 Chair: We put it on the House authorities, but it is also part of the employment structure and the fact that people are seen as not being employed, or they are employed by a Member or an outside organisation or whatever. It is about that service being blind to that—it needs to be blind to that, in the sense that it is a service for everybody who is on the estate regardless of who their employer is. Sunara Bint Ali, did you want to come in?
Sunara Bint Ali: I have written this down, so if I do not look at anyone, forgive me; I have written it so that I can say it properly. Adjustments are often offered with strict limits, with no clear justification. That lack of clarity is especially difficult for someone like me with neurodivergency, for whom clarity is essential to functioning well. We require clarity. Sometimes, it is a bit like speaking to a child, but we need thorough explanation at times of why a certain process is how it is.
Too often, support feels performative: enough to tick a box, but not enough to remove real barriers. The absence of transparency creates uncertainty, which really affects us mentally. Many of us disclose our neurodivergence selectively, knowing that advocating for support can come at a cost. I speak from my experience not here, but before, where I have not been able to secure a job when I have disclosed it, and they probably assumed, “She can’t do this job.” It was just an assumed factor, without really knowing what I can offer to the employer.
We should not have to prove and re-prove our needs, which is a continuing issue that I face all the time. Instead, we need a culture built on trust, flexibility and genuine responsiveness. It goes back to what Ms Coombes said about proactiveness. The environment does need to be proactive. I find it is quite reactive. It needs to be consistent, not conditional.
When it comes to discussing disability, with mine, you cannot tell what disability I have. It is amazing that we have this panel, and they can tell us what their actual needs are, but for someone like me, it takes a lot of emphasis that these are my needs. Sometimes, it is not believable.
Chair: That is really articulate, thank you. Chris, I will come to you, and then we will move on to more procedural things.
Q34 Sir Christopher Chope: I would like to ask Mike Everett a question. In your evidence, which I know is private and confidential, you do not refer to any solution to the issue of people suddenly encountering that the lift is out of order or the loo is not working, and the differential impact that has on people with disabilities. Do you think that that is because of a lack of receptiveness on the part of the House authorities? Do you think that the standards of maintenance are not sufficient? Do you think that the repairs are not being carried out quickly enough? What do you think can be done to change this?
As a topical example today, I came in from the House of Commons car park, and instead of the two doors that used to be there, there were two much heavier, thicker doors that said they were fire doors. Those are not doors that are easily openable, although they are not security doors. They have just been put there, and they are making it much more difficult for people who are carrying luggage or have disabilities to get through. Do you think the House authorities have any understanding of the extent to which all that has an impact on people such as yourself? I would also emphasise that the escalator from the car park is invariably out of order.
Recently, when I was chairing a Committee, I had to more or less threaten to suspend proceedings until fresh bulbs were put in some of the lights above the Hansard reporters. These are the nitty-gritty things that should be taken for granted in the Palace of Westminster, but we cannot do that.
Dr Mike Everett: I do think the House authorities take these issues very seriously. In my experience of raising and discussing them with colleagues, they have been taken seriously, and people do act on them. A lot of these issues are difficult to resolve at times.
What I would say is that, collectively, we should try to create more of a culture of accessibility in the House of Commons and across Parliament. By that, I mean people should be more aware of the impact their actions have on those with disabilities. A lot of the problems I run into are people just not thinking about how their actions impact on people with disabilities—blocking or locking disabled entrances, using accessible toilets when they do not need to or using accessible lifts when they do not need to and breaking them in the process. No one is doing that maliciously; they are just not thinking about how their actions impact on others.
We could create more of a culture of accessibility across the House of Commons—and that has to come from the top down—but also across Parliament. Line managers need to talk about it more with colleagues, and we need to encourage people to see accessibility as more of a personal responsibility that everyone has, in the same way that we encourage staff, Members and visitors on the estate to see security as a personal responsibility. If we could create more of that environment, I think it would address a lot of the issues you are talking about.
Esther Webber: If I can come in on the point about maintenance—I know it is emphatically not within the remit of this Committee—but there is a wider issue about the maintenance of Parliament and the way it has been fudged for many, many, many years. Even the fact that it is not part of this Committee’s remit, I think, reinforces the message that we are prepared to make do and mend—for many years. That is what people are also doing on a smaller scale when it comes to adjustments within the Palace. That is my hobby horse out of the way.
Chair: Great. I am conscious of time, as we have only 15 minutes left. Do you mind, Harry, if we get on to some of the procedures, information and that kind of thing? Paulette—you were going to open on that.
Q35 Paulette Hamilton: Hi. My question is about language and documentation, and at times how difficult it can be to read—especially if English is not your first language, you have a sight issue, or you are neurodivergent, which people do not always mention. The paperwork is cumbersome—it can be well over 200 pages—and sometimes you have to read it a few times to absorb and translate what it all means. What are your views on this aspect of Parliament, starting with Sunara, and perhaps Esther if you would like to answer as well?
Sunara Bint Ali: This is quite an emotional one. Language has been quite a tricky area. As I said at the beginning, Asperger’s is the commonly used term. So as soon as you used the word “Asperger’s”, it was automatically perceived that, “This person is disabled and can’t do their job,” and any request they make is, “They’re a troublesome person.” That is not the case, but sadly, I have encountered that quite a lot and it contributed to other health issues as a result of the language used.
We need to move away from dismissive remarks. Someone recently said to me, “Everyone has a bit of Asperger’s in them.” No, not everyone has a bit of Asperger’s. Either you are a neurodivergent, or you are not. Language is very, very important. For me, it is very important. Whenever someone says, “Everyone has a bit of Asperger’s in them”, they are downplaying my needs.
It is really hard for me to express exactly how I feel, but it makes me close up and I do not want to talk about it any more. So I go back into my little shell.
Chair: You have been very, very articulate today, if I may just say. You can be very proud of that.
Paulette Hamilton: Esther, do you have any views?
Esther Webber: Yes. Particularly as a journalist covering this place, a lot of your job is trying to explain the procedure and what is actually going on to people. That is a consistent battle. One of the big innovations since I’ve been covering Parliament has been a really simple thing, which is explanatory notes on amendments. In the old days before them, you used to have to go line by line, look at which bit of the law or which bit of the Bill something was referring to, then sort of reverse-engineer from there what the meaning of amendment 5B was.
Now, just having that simple, “The effect of this amendment would be x,” is so much more accessible. I wonder whether there are other aspects of procedure and parliamentary language where just a footnote, or the availability of some kind of annotation, would really help things. I mean, it should be part of my job—I am not complaining about that—but people need to interact with Parliament independently and there is definitely more work that can be done around the transparency of the technical language used here.
Q36 Mr Barros-Curtis: Some of the evidence we have heard talks about jargon-busters. You have used a practical example, Esther. From your respective experiences, have you found that House of Commons staff have engaged, whether with you or with others who you know of, to analyse what would be the most effective form of communication to demystify or explain this place and the work we do here?
Dr Mike Everett: I think that staff of the House of Commons put a lot of effort into trying to explain parliamentary procedure to non-specialists. We produced the “MPs’ Guide to Procedure” a few years ago, which was an attempt to explain procedure more accessibly and in plain English. That was aimed at Members, but maybe you could think about doing something like that for the general public.
I think that a lot of the language we use in Parliament is quite inaccessible for non-specialists, and it can be quite off-putting for people with disabilities or other groups who do not traditionally engage with the work of Parliament.
Select Committees talk about “witnesses”, and “giving oral or written evidence”, and it all sounds very formal—like a court. Although this is a formal proceeding of the House, it is quite an informal discussion. However, I think the language we use around Committees can be off-putting.
Also, a lot of the procedures and a lot of the language we use in the Chamber sometimes do not have their logical, everyday meaning. When the Whip stands up and names a day for consideration of business and says, “Tomorrow,” they do not mean tomorrow; they mean some day in the future. It is also not clear what words like “forthwith” mean in some of the Standing Orders. We know that it means without amendment or without debate, but the general public and people with any sort of special needs or disabilities would probably have trouble understanding and engaging with it, so language is a problem and there is probably more that Parliament can and should be doing to address that.
Generally, my experience of working with colleagues is that everyone is very committed and keen to make parliamentary procedure as accessible and as clear to people as possible. That includes for Members, so that they understand the full use of the procedures we have to hold the Government to account and to scrutinise legislation, and the general public, to make it as accessible as possible.
Q37 Mr Barros-Curtis: That is really interesting. Relatedly, could you reflect on how we can try to explain it to constituents, the wider public and, particularly, disabled people—such as yourself, Harry—who might be interested in working here? I was looking at the “disability in Parliament” page on the Parliament website to refresh my memory. It talks about how Parliament supports a range of internships, and it has some videos of people talking about their experiences and their experience of disability in Parliament, but it links to videos that are 12 years old. It is not current, and it is not a particularly encouraging advertisement to people with non-sensory or neurodivergent disabilities, who might think, “Is this a Parliament that represents me and can represent me?” Do any of you have any views on that?
Harry Gable: A lot of people first come to Parliament as visitors, either on school trips or on a family day out. Whether you are watching on TV or visiting, it is kind of the same thing: you form an impression that it might be an environment that you would or would not suit. For the vast majority of people, I would be quite comfortable saying that they would not feel that it would initially suit them, and that is a massive part of it.
We need to talk about the difference between perception and reality. The perception of inaccessibility is as powerful as the reality. It might well be that we have great programmes in place for reasonable adjustments, and we have great programmes in place to explain the accessibility of procedures, explanatory notes and so on, explaining what is going on for people who are deep into the world, but we need to think about the people sitting at home who are watching the news or visiting this place on a school trip, and for whom that experience might be the difference between them thinking, “Yeah, I could be an MP in the future,” or, “Oh no, I didn’t understand anything that went on there. It felt alien, and I felt awkward the whole time. I am not going to go near politics.” This place has a very important, individualised role in promoting the work of democracy in the UK. How that comes across to both visitors and people who are watching on TV is really important.
Q38 Chair: That is a really good point. One of the other things we talked about with language is words like “Bills,” which most of the time are not actual Bills but essentially motions or whatever. Just to probe the point Mike made on procedure a little further, for a lot of Members and former Members, the interconnection between procedure and some of the physical challenges it might bring was really drawn out in that session—things such as: bobbing; the seating in the Chamber, which Mike mentioned in the context of clerking; getting seats in the first place; and walking around to vote. The way we work and the way we do things have a particular disadvantage for those with disabilities.
As staff, Clerks, journalists or those working for MPs, can you think of where the procedures are potentially a real impediment to you doing your job in the same way. Mike mentioned not being able to do all the functions of your job as a Clerk. Has, for example, the move to digital helped? Is physical paperwork a particular challenge?
Dr Mike Everett: I cannot think of many procedures of the House that would prevent me from doing my job. You have listed quite a few examples of difficulties in the Chamber for Members, and that is for the House to think about. I think it is more that there are things that Select Committees could think about in terms of making their work more accessible to people with disabilities and making the information and outputs of Committees more accessible to people with special needs and disabilities.
Most Committee reports are written reports, and we do not routinely produce them in a variety of accessible formats. Some Committees have produced reports that way, but it is usually quite bespoke because we think the report is on an inquiry that might be of interest to particular groups. Perhaps that is something that Committees could think about doing more regularly. Obviously, it would have resource implications, but I do not think it necessarily has to be costly; it could be something as simple as a Chair posting a YouTube video on the Committee’s website talking about the report and its recommendations.
Some of the procedures that enable the public to engage with Parliament are more difficult if you have disabilities or special requirements. Select Committees still carry out their inquiries in the same way as they have for the last 200 or 300 years, by issuing a call for written evidence and taking oral evidence. If you are not comfortable or not able to do either of those things, you are quite unlikely to engage with the work of Committees, so maybe Committees could think about taking evidence in more innovative ways. Some Committees have done that, but it has been quite bespoke. Perhaps Committees could think about doing that more regularly, and about taking evidence in audio files or video formats, which would not only help people with accessibility needs but would probably reach other groups that do not usually engage with Parliament.
Esther Webber: Some of the things you mentioned, such as bobbing and voting, are obviously more of a direct concern for Members, but covering Parliament during the pandemic, it was really striking just how quickly the system adapted to make it possible for some of those things not to be done in person. Obviously, the House of Lords has retained some of those practices, but it remains pretty controversial, I think, within this place. The point I want to make is that I do not think it should be assumed that disabled people, as a monolith, want everything to be done online. I do not think that is the case; it is about having more, which is what was revealed by the pandemic experience.
Q39 Chair: Marie, did you have a final question?
Marie Goldman: My question is about how the House of Commons could be improved to make it easier for staff and the public to understand. We have touched on that, but there is so much more that could come out, and we are obviously running out of time. If witnesses, or anybody watching, have suggestions about how something could be improved—it might be something really small or it might be something much bigger—I would really like to hear from them, because it is important that we take on board lots of different views about how this place can change and how it can be improved.
The issue of language that Mike, in particular, talked about is really important, and I am also keen to see change, because I do not think we should be doing things that make it very difficult for the public to understand. We are here to represent the public, and if the public do not understand what we are doing here, how can they scrutinise us? I am keen to understand more about that, but we do not have time to go any further.
Q40 Chair: Is there anything that you feel you have not been able to impart or say? Obviously, as Marie says, if you have something that you do not want to say now, please write to us. We will keep all that in confidence. Follow what we are doing; we are hearing from many others, and we are hoping to come up with a series of recommendations for different aspects of the House. Our aim is for early in the autumn, so we will be pulling that together over the summer.
Marie Goldman: Can I say one more thing? I would like to say this on the record, because I found myself getting very cross listening to some of the stuff that the witnesses have experienced and about how things have not changed quickly enough. I just want to say that we need to change that, and it needs to happen very soon. I would really like to be part of that change. I found myself getting very cross, but thank you so much for telling us about it.
Chair: Yes, thank you all so much.
Harry Gable: A good note to end on, and I really want this to come out of this session, is that I have worked here for four and a half years, and there is a reason why I am still here. I would have left after a year if it was awful; it is not. I really love the job that I do, and 90% of it does not pertain at all to my disability, but that is because I have worked to put the adjustments in place and—I wish to acknowledge this and end on a positive point—because there are so many good people in the House. For example, the House staff, either at Debate or Dispatch Box, help me get a cup of coffee or help me get lunch when I need it. There are so many good people who really see it and want it to work.
I do not want to make this place seem like the villain; it is not. My critique is that, actually, if I want lunch, I have to go down individually to the Debate and say, “Hi. How are you?” I have formed those relationships. They see me come in, they know, and it is lovely. It is one of my favourite parts of the day when I get to interact with a member of staff and they see me coming, and they ask about my day and whether they can help me get lunch. That is great, but I have had to have the confidence and the assertiveness to form those relationships and to make that happen. There is nothing systemic about that because nobody has come up to me and asked how I am going to get lunch at lunch time. Nobody has told me that the House of Commons can help me with this.
My experience of the House of Commons has generally been really positive, but I am aware that a lot of that has been very individual to me. There is nothing systemic to replicate that for someone like me who might not feel as confident to ask for what they need, and it should not be on that person to continually ask for what they need. It should be there, and it should be offered, because we should be equal in the workplace.
Chair: Absolutely. That is a great note to end on. I thank you all again for the passion that you have shown for your jobs and the work that you do, and for showing your enjoyment of working here, as well as for sharing the challenges and the systemic issues. That is what this Committee is trying to overcome, so that you can flourish, succeed and contribute in the brilliant ways that you are. Thank you very much for coming and speaking to us today.