Conduct Committee: 11th Report

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Cormack because he was not asleep at the switch, as I was when this order was put in front of the House. Of course, we were not given an awful lot of notice; I gather the order was published on a Wednesday and placed before the House the following day.

When I attended this course, I was asked whether I would like to be referred to by my Christian name, which I was happy to agree to. I then said that I would be very interested to know how much the course was costing, because we should all bear in mind value for the taxpayer. The lady conducting the course claimed that she did not know how much it was costing and referred me to somebody else in the organisation. Since then, the Times has told us—as my noble friend has asserted—that it is three-quarters of a million pounds. That is serious money in anybody’s estimation. Are we getting value for money with this course?

The course I went on had a hypothetical situation of a new young girl working in the Library. She had to be working in the Library—I gather the Clerk of the Parliaments at the time said that it should not be said that she was working in the Library because somehow that would embarrass the staff of the House; I cannot think why—but, as she was being asked to research things, she had to be in the Library. A Peer called Lord Adams was approaching her in a lecherous manner. This hypothesis is almost too ridiculous to even contemplate because, if somebody wanted to approach some young woman in the House, they would not do it in public in front of everybody. But the great advantage of having a hypothetical situation where it is done in public in front of everybody is that we are all complicit in allowing it to happen. That was what this was all about; we should have stopped him behaving like this.

If there is a problem, it is probably that Lord Adams employs this girl with his own money and has her tucked away in some office in the Palace so far away in the rabbit warren that you can barely find it on a good day. He says to her, “Would you like to work late?” and she has to comply because he is paying her. He then says, “Why don’t we share a drink together?” and, half a bottle of whisky later, you can imagine what happens. That is the problem—if there is a problem. The hypothesis we were dealing was very unlikely to ever occur and was a complete waste of time.

I did learn something on this course. There are not such things as “girls” unless they are under the age of 14, so it is inappropriate to call a woman who is over the age of 14 a “girl”.

[A noble Lord]

But the noble Lord did.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Indeed, people on this course called people “girls”. We cannot say to a woman, “Gosh, that’s a nice new hairdo you’ve got”, or, “I really like the dress you are wearing”, because that is inappropriate as well.

This course is a complete expensive farce and we should never have embarked on it in the first place. I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, will abandon this course and get back to a more sensible use of taxpayers’ money.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

Does any other noble Lord in the Chamber wish to speak? If not, I will ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, to reply.