Our submission to inquiry into Gender Sensitive Parliament
2021-04-16 12:42:00 +0100
Compassion in Politics has made a formal submission to Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into a "Gender Sensitive Parliament."
The inquiry has been launched to assess progress towards creating a more inclusive environment in parliament for non-male politicians.
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In our submission we called for:
- A full audit of parliamentary procedures to ensure they comply with the best practice human resources guidance as set out by the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development. We argued that this should ideally lead to reduced working hours, the introduction of parental, carer, and compassionate leave, allowing MPs to job-share, introducing the ACAS definition of bullying onto the floor of the Commons, and creating an independent HR body for MPs and their staff.
- The establishment of a formal support group for female MPs and staff to provide them with guidance, support, and, where necessary, advocacy.
- Redesigning the Commons into a circular shape - the current model is deliberately adversarial.
- Introduction of electronic voting - including allowing MPs to vote from home.
- Ban the practice of booing in the Commons
- Provide compassion training for all MPs
- Establish a mandatory induction process for all new MPs to parliament
- Create a separate inquiry into the experience of trans, non-binary, and gender diverse individuals working in parliament.
You can read more about the above proposals and the other recommendations that we made in our full submission here.
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