Privileges and Conduct
Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Baroness Deech
Baroness Deech
The point I actually made was about the difficulty of defining acting on your personal honour. I also remind the noble Baroness, who once had a very senior position at the BBC, that even the BBC, one of our most independent and proud organisations, known around the world almost as much as this House, had a very incestuous complaints-handling scheme. In the end it was handed over to Ofcom, because that is the way things are going. Even the BBC had to accept that.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The reason why organisations pass responsibility in such circumstances to another body is because they have themselves failed to meet the expectations people rightly have of them. I am arguing that it may be that what some noble Lords have argued for in the context of the specifics of sexual misconduct, bullying and harassment is what should happen. Irrespective of that, it does not remove the need for this House to have the power to act in the circumstances as I have described them.