Conduct Committee

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and all members of the Conduct Committee for their service to the House. Sitting on any committee of your Lordships’ House is a responsibility, but none more so than serving on the Conduct Committee. These are difficult matters, but, as has already been said, we do have choices. Being a Member of your Lordships’ House is not something which is forced upon any of us.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, has explained how complex this matter is, certainly from the perspective of the lawyers of this House and possibly other professional Members of this Chamber. But I believe that it is our responsibility to handle complexity with as much simplicity as possible, and to do everything we can to avoid complexity being perceived as an excuse not to do the right thing.

We have to accept that we live in an era where openness and transparency are important aspects of accountability. Because we are an unelected House, these principles are even more important. Putting in place measures to help us demonstrate our willingness to be accountable for the way we conduct ourselves is important, as is ensuring that we equip ourselves, as a House, to act decisively when one of us fails to meet the standards expected of us in our conduct and behaviour. We cannot always wait for the worst to happen before doing the right thing and hope that a defence of “we would if we could, but we can’t” will stand up to any form of scrutiny.

I understand the arguments that are being made by noble Lords who are opposed to the report and recommendations from the Conduct Committee, but to be absolutely clear, the committee’s recommendations have my full support. I have a huge amount of respect for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the other noble Lords who serve in this House while practising law, but I will not be joining him in the Division Lobby if he divides the House this evening.

I have listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I am sympathetic to his argument, but I am not sympathetic enough for us to delay accepting the recommendations of the committee’s report today. I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the committee to consider further what the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has proposed, but I do not think it is something that should get in the way or delay us today.

In the same vein, I would like to raise one final point. I noted the exchange of correspondence between the committee chair and the Lord Speaker which was published on the committee’s website just a day after it published the report that we are debating this evening. That correspondence is about adding a disrepute clause to our code of conduct. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, explains in his letter to the Lord Speaker that it is not possible for the committee to make a recommendation because there remains

“significant disagreement within the House”

about this matter. I am grateful to the committee for the work that it has done, but it is concerning that this important gap in our sanctions regime remains unresolved, and that it is only being debated behind closed doors. The committee chair’s letter says that this matter will be kept under review, and that is very good. But I ask that, before the letter gathers dust waiting for another serious scandal to happen to prompt action, the committee consider how discussion of this topic could be opened up in order to assist us in resolving it, so that, just as we have seen with the matter that we are debating this evening, the topic could be debated more transparently.