Conduct Committee

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly take part in this debate. First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for the sensitivity and speed with which she, having assumed the chair of this committee, considered those points made on the Floor of your Lordships’ House on 19 January. As she rightly said, Members in all parts of the House, in all political parties and from the Cross Benches made trenchant observations. I briefly remind your Lordships that this came about as a result of four of us who had taken part in a debate being complained about to the commissioner for words uttered on the Floor of your Lordships’ House.

We believed that there was a certain ambiguity in the wording of the then rules. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and her committee have taken this on board. I am grateful, as I am sure are your Lordships in all parts of the House, but I hope that the noble Baroness and her committee will remain vigilant on this. Burke talked about the price of liberty being eternal vigilance, and the price of free speech— an indispensable part of liberty—is also dependent on eternal vigilance. There will be those who seek to get round these rules and complain about what is said on the Floor of your Lordships’ House. As we said on 19 January, this is not a case of agreeing with each other. I frequently quote Voltaire: I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That has to be our watchword here, and I very much hope that the noble Baroness and her committee will keep this in mind.

I will make just a couple of comments about Valuing Everyone. Most of us who went through this course derived very little benefit from it. I am very glad indeed that it is not to be made compulsory for Members who have already gone through it, but I say to the noble Baroness that I hope the new course will be very different. I will put a suggestion to her, because she said in the report that new Members should automatically be obliged to take this course. I would much rather that new Members of your Lordships’ House met with her, the Lord Speaker, and a representative of each of the major parties and of the Cross Benches to have a proper talk about what being a Member of this House entails, and not be put through a course that, if it is anything like the last one, will be largely irrelevant. I want to put that on the record.

There is a final question I would like to ask the noble Baroness. There is a reference in the report to a “steering group”. I do not know about your Lordships, but I have never heard of a steering group. We seem to have a lot of rather mysterious bodies in this House. I would like to know exactly who appoints the steering group, who is on it and who is in the driving seat. We ought to make the way this House is run transparent, easy to understand for everybody and responsive to the needs of Members in all parts of the House.

I am very glad that the Lord Speaker has arranged for another forum on 8 June—I give it a free plug—and I hope that it is much better attended than the last one, because we need to know what is being planned for this House in the way of both physical alterations and the rules that are meant to govern our conduct.

I welcome the report, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, very much for what she has done, and I hope we can move forward.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be very brief. First, I thank the chairman of the committee for having listened to the House and for having made these amendments—but I do have one query. Paragraph 4 states:

“Where the only evidence cited in support of a complaint is the member’s expression of views or opinions, the complaint will be dismissed”—


that is great, but it then goes on—

“following preliminary assessment on this basis.”

I do not know what that means. Does it mean that if someone complains about something that I have said, a statement will be issued saying that it is being investigated? Why do we need

“following preliminary assessment on this basis”?

Does that mean that, once it is seen that the complaint is about an expression in the Chamber, it will be dismissed?

My second question relates to Valuing Everyone. The report states:

“A failure to arrange to attend a seminar within the specified period is a breach of this Code.”


The specified period is three months. We had a very bad experience with the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, who was not able to take part because of illness, and there is no get-out here. So I suggest it should say, “unless there is a reasonable excuse”.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I wish to follow up my noble friend Lord Cormack’s remarks about Valuing Everyone. The last course we had was, to be quite honest, absolutely farcical and a total waste of taxpayers’ money. I notice that the noble Baroness is introducing a new course. Can I have an undertaking from her that she will attend the first course, so that she can approve what is being put out to other Members of this House?