Conduct Committee

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I start by pointing out that both Chief Whips have disappeared, which may be a reflection on this part of the speakers’ list, of course. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for the report and for the courtesy that she showed me when we met to discuss certain issues. Anything that I say is certainly not a criticism of her.

The redraft and shortening is overall a very good thing. The trouble with current documents is that they get longer and longer and more and more difficult—so I do welcome that. I also support the points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, because these reports get published and then go immediately on the internet, and this is how people are then defined. One noble Lord who was sanctioned said to me that, when he went for an interview, he was confronted with the fact that he had supposedly breached the rules of conduct—well, not “supposedly”, because the Conduct Committee had found that he had breached the rules of conduct. So it is not a short-lived thing. The point that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, makes is a very sound one, backed up by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

I also think my noble friend Lord Hamilton’s point is sound. I was appalled at the report on my noble friend Lady Meyer, where it seemed that a playground scrap had been elevated into a great controversy. It struck me that it was way beyond where the rules should have been applied. I wonder how many members of the staff of the House of Lords have been suspended for offences against their code and how many of them have been suspended without any pay, because that is what suspension does here.

I turn to the point about the House being in disrepute. Like the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I have also been on the receiving end of this. There is a regular little group of people out in the community, many of them with surnames that to me look very Ukrainian, who regularly protest when I speak about Russia. On occasion, they have even written to the leader of my group asking that I be thrown out. To the credit of the leader of my group, he refused to do so, particularly when I pointed out that, if he did do so, that would be greeted with great joy in Moscow.

The whole role of the committee needs reviewing. I would like to see an independent Members’ services committee that has this as part of its remit. The more that we build up committees that have nothing better to do than employ four experts on six-year contracts to look at the detail of Members’ behaviour, it is just not worth it.

What we should do is make much greater use of mediation. The report on my noble friend Lady Meyer need never have been written; the thing could have been solved by a process of mediation. We also need to open the hearings. I can see the danger of having them on the Floor of the House and the danger of having journalists there, but why should Members of the House not be entitled to attend hearings affecting their own colleagues? That seems quite reasonable to me, particularly if you have a confidentiality clause. So I would like the new committee to look at the impossible task of abolishing itself and the not-too impossible task of looking to use more mediation and other skills to solve problems.