‘I’m happy to chain myself to the door handles’: Meet the MP doing battle for a more accessible UK parliament

LONDON — The route into parliament for any aspiring MP can be a difficult one — but for most, it doesn’t mean fighting to get in the building. 

Marie Tidball, the new Labour MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, has had to do just that.

Tidball, who was a lawyer and an academic before she was elected last year, has physical impairments affecting all four of her limbs.

She is full of praise for the parliamentary induction team, who provided her with assistance before she had recruited her own staff; party whips, who helped her secure an office close to the chamber; and the Speaker and deputy speakers.

Yet the best efforts of colleagues have not been enough to compensate for the many ways in which the U.K. parliament is forbidding for those with physical disabilities.

The Palace of Westminster, which experts estimate is laid out over about 60 different mismatched levels, is famously difficult to navigate. 

Tidball recently invited a member of parliament’s restoration team to follow her on a journey between Portcullis House, a newer part of the building, and her office, using his closed fist to try to open doors — a standard accessibility test. 

“By the end of it, he looked like he wanted to keel over,” she chuckles. “I’m happy to chain myself to the door handles in parliament if that gets the message across, but I’ve already had a conversation now with six senior people about door handles. That’s not a good use of my expertise and my time.”

It is not only moving around the building which poses challenges, however. 

Many MPs who were elected for the first time last year have been struck by the old-fashioned rules governing the House of Commons chamber, which dictate that MPs must sit in their place for an entire debate if they want to make a contribution, and bob up and down to get called to speak.

For Tidball, this is particularly onerous.

“The green benches are designed for tall men,” she explains, “so I either have to sit right forward, which is really uncomfortable, or I have to sit right back and put my feet up against the row in front of me, otherwise my [prosthetic] leg will drop off.”

Modernizing parliament will not be straightforward, however, and not everyone is in favor of reform. | Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

It’s particularly uncomfortable to remain seated in such a way for hours on end. She had to wait four hours to speak ahead of her maiden speech in the Commons, by which time she confesses she was “losing the will to live.”

Equally exhausting are the rounds of back-to-back voting, in which MPs are expected to troop through the “division lobbies” in a long queue several times over. 

A U.K. parliament spokesperson said: “It is vital that Parliament is accessible to all. We understand that there is more to be done to ensure that disabled people do not face unnecessary difficulties when working in or visiting parliament. We are committed to making further essential adjustments and ensuring that all our staff are trained in disability awareness.”

Modernizing parliament

The Commons modernization committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into making parliament more accessible, examining both the physical environment and the requirement for long sittings. 

In carrying out its enquiries, the committee could end up drawing inspiration from an unlikely source: the House of Lords, where members can call on doorkeepers to vote on their behalf, or vote remotely in the case of long-term conditions.

Tidball is hardly the first disabled MP at Westminster — and her predecessors all found ways to make the system work for them — but her argument is that adjustments should be regarded as more routine so that not every new disabled MP has to reinvent the wheel.

Modernizing parliament will not be straightforward, however, and not everyone is in favor of reform. Some longer-serving parliamentarians complain privately that changes to convention, such as not requiring MPs to sit for long periods and listen to others’ contributions, will demote the role of the chamber as a place for debate.

To this, Tidball says: “You might want to politely remind them of the Equality Act, which was passed by this house 15 years ago.”