Conduct Committee

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, with your Lordships’ indulgence, I shall raise a narrow point in the gap, one that I have already raised privately with the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, on whose report I congratulate her, as I congratulate others who worked on it.

I made this point to the committee in written evidence, but I do not think it has been addressed. It falls under the category of natural justice and fairness and, in the interests of transparency, comes from first-hand experience as this is something that happened to me, virtually as soon as I came into this House. In fact, one colleague was amazed that it had taken me so long to be reported, whereas another was rather amazed that I had been reported so early on.

It was a vexatious complaint. I will name names, because this complainant, Dr Alex May, complains almost exclusively about Conservative Peers in this place. He made a complaint that I had failed to register an interest. I was able to provide clear and unambiguous written evidence that I had followed the register of Lords’ interests, with email evidence to support that. However, it was deemed of sufficient importance to escalate it to the Conduct Committee. The complaint was, perhaps inevitably, subsequently completely dismissed, and it was found that I had no case to answer.

My point is about the natural justice of that process. It is my contention that, to avoid vexatious complaints, when complaints are handled by the appropriate powers that be, they should be handled in privacy. It should not be announced at the outset that X is being investigated, because inherent in that is a presumption of guilt. Where is the presumption of innocence? By all means, investigate me, investigate all of us—that is only right and proper—but only when natural justice has taken place and the committee has found the person in question to be guilty should the announcement be made that X has been investigated and found guilty. If the individual is not found guilty because it is judged that there was no complaint initially to be addressed, there is no need to mention it at all.

In the cause of natural justice and the presumption of innocence, I ask the noble Baroness if she will look again at having these investigations in private until an announcement is made, if the individual concerned is judged to have fallen foul of any of the existing rules.