Conduct Committee

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome this shortened version of the code, particularly the replacement of the original appendix B, which had ridiculous definitions that made it seem as if we were all living in some kind of red-light district. Can the noble Baroness clarify whether the commissioner will still be able to refer to appendix B if needed and, if so, why?

On bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct, I immediately want to separate staff from Members, because none of us wants ever to allow someone in a position of power to be able to get away with that kind of behaviour towards people who are employed here and do such a good job. But surely any kind of harassment, bullying or sexual harassment in this place can be dealt with by the Member who is the target of such behaviour. Are any of us not capable of calling out someone who behaves like that?

I am obviously from an older generation used to dealing with overt, unwelcome advances simply by telling the person where to go. Do Members of this House really need all this bureaucracy to deal with other Members’ bad behaviour? None of us here is a shrinking violet, frightened by their own shadow—but I appreciate that times have changed. If these clauses are to stay, I ask why it states that a person may be harassed even if, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, they were not the intended target of the harassment. What exactly does this mean? If someone is harassing me and I tell them where to go, the person sitting beside me can say that they felt harassed. This is getting ridiculous.

I welcome what seems to be a strong commitment to freedom of speech, but then, as others have said, paragraph 24 says that

“egregiously offensive statements made by its members on public-facing social media may in certain circumstances fall within the scope of the Code”.

Who is going to decide that they are offensive? I fear that this could be mission creep—a slippery slope to perhaps even beginning to police what is said in the Chamber.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has a habit of making disparaging remarks about those with whom he disagrees; sometimes he even mistakes brass for silver. But I do not want him to be stopped from doing that, because I would much prefer his Peers—rather than some commissioner—to judge whether his remarks tell us more about him. This is what we should have.

I want to stress this point on lay members, because it has not been mentioned by anyone. It says, in paragraph 26, that they

“bring a different perspective to the deliberations of the Conduct Committee, drawing on experiences derived outside the House”.

But it seems that all the lay members come from the same kind of human resources background. Some of them have made their living out of HR, and their everyday language can be alien to the experiences of many Members of the House. We are not a multinational business listed on the stock exchange, and human resources in this place cannot be seen in the same way.

Can the noble Baroness explain how these independents are selected and if there is an opportunity for men or women from a non-academic or non-university background, who perhaps worked in manual jobs, to be appointed? We might get some more common sense. Is there any reason why we cannot know how much the independents and the facilitators of the behavioural code seminars are paid? Incidentally, I am not sure that the seminars serve any valuable function.

I hope that we continue to review this code to ensure that we do not have huge numbers of vexatious complaints. We surely must avoid creating in this House an atmosphere of mistrust and the undermining of free speech.