Theresa May has followed a cross-party summit on how to better handle harassment and abuse at Westminster by meeting staff working at parliament to hear their views on the current situation, No 10 has said.
May met about a dozen parliamentary staff on Tuesday evening.
The group members were chosen by the Unite union and the Members and Peers’ Staff Association (Mapsa), which works on behalf of Westminster employees, the prime minister’s spokesman said.
The private meeting at May’s Commons office was intended for the PM “to hear their experiences first-hand, in terms of how complaints procedures work in relation to harassment”, the spokesman said.
It followed a meeting on Monday evening where May met the Westminster leaders of other parties to begin talks on a more general way to respond to the wave of accusations about sexual harassment in and around parliament.
“I think she feels that it’s important to get that first-hand sense of the current system, so she’s invited Mapsa and also Unite to bring together a small group of people working in parliament so that they can have a meeting with her this evening,” the spokesman said.
There would be no details released of what was said, he added: “We want people to be able to feel they can be open and candid with the prime minister.
“There’s a sort of ambition that you get a cross-party selection of people, so you can see what the experiences are like for people working in all different circumstances.”
The dozen or so people had been picked by Mapsa and Unite as a representative group, the spokesman explained.
“She [May] met with the party leaders last night, and clearly we want to move forwards on a cross-party basis, but it would be hopeful to inform that and talk to the actual staff.”
At Monday’s meeting, the party leaders agreed to set up a cross-party working group to consider how to strengthen protections for parliamentary staff, and to beef up human resources support for MPs.
The Green party leader, Caroline Lucas, told the Guardian the summit had been “broadly constructive and helpful”, with a common agreement on the need for urgent action.
Lucas said there had been some resistance to her proposal for parliament to directly employ MPs’ staff, rather than the politicians themselves being ultimately responsible.
“At the moment, there is not support for that, which I did feel was disappointing. I think it’s really clear that 650 MPs are not qualified employers,” she said.
