Bercow under fire for not taking claims of bullying seriously

COMMONS Speaker John Bercow has been accused of not taking bullying allegations seriously enough.

As chairman of the House of Commons Commission, the controversial Mr Bercow oversees the running of the House and handles complaints.

But questions were last night raised by BBC2’s Newsnight over his handling of allegations made against an MP which were subsequently investigated by the Commission.

In 2011, Labour’s Paul Farrelly was accused of bullying former clerk Emily Commander, who has since emigrated.

The Commission decided it could not rule that she had been bullied – despite a report finding evidence that supported her claims, according to Newsnight.

Testimony from two other female former members of staff who were allegedly bullied by Mr Farrelly were dismissed as ‘too old’, the programme reported.

The Commission also invited Ms Commander and Mr Farrelly to enter mediation, which is not regarded as a good way to deal with bullying.

Documents obtained by Newsnight suggest that Ms Commander was left with the impression that if she did not enter mediation, the Commission might decide that she was not bullied.

She did not pursue the complaint and instead left the Commons.

Newsnight also revealed new information about bullying claims made against the Speaker himself by a clerk in his office. Kate Emms took a job as his private secretary in May 2010 but left her role less than a year later in February 2011.

Her colleagues alleged that this was because of the behaviour of Mr Bercow after she told staff that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Colleagues told Newsnight that she was undermined by Mr Bercow in a range of ways – and he seemed to shout at her a lot.

Mr Bercow denies the allegations of bullying towards her.

His spokesman said: ‘ The Speaker completely and utterly refutes the allegation that he behaved in such a manner, either eight years ago, or at any other time. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply untrue.’

According to Newsnight a number of serving and recently departed clerks said they would not work for Mr Bercow as his private secretary.

Ms Emms’ predecessor, former Royal Navy submarine captain Angus Sinclair, 60, won a £100,000 pay- off after being sacked for being too old-fashioned.

Mr Sinclair, who had held the job for five years, was devastated to be told by Mr Bercow that he wanted ‘someone more modern’ and would be bringing in his ‘own people’. Mr Farrelly told Newsnight: ‘In 2012 allegations were made about me having bullied a clerk to the Committee during the compilation of the phone hacking report. These allegations were investigated and not upheld.

‘Despite this, I apologised if I had inadvertently upset the clerk who had suffered stress. The policy under which they were investigated was considered to be so unfair to those complained about that it was immediately withdrawn and replaced by another policy.’ He said it would, in any case, be inappropriate for MPs to be removed from select committees as a consequence of staff complaints because ‘MPs are elected either by the whole House or by their political parties to serve on Committees’.

Mr Bercow was a Tory MP before he took over as Speaker in 2009, but his time in the role has been punctuated by controversy.

His high-handed style has irritated members on both sides of the House and Conservatives have repeatedly plotted to replace him and hold votes of no confidence. MPs also attempted to oust him on the eve of the election in 2015 but were defeated.

‘Utterly refutes the allegation’