Conduct Committee

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the Conduct Committee on reducing the amount of the Code of Conduct by 30%. If this lesson was followed in other areas by Whitehall, we would have less legislation to worry about. Perhaps the team that has done this might offer its services to other departments.

It is also very sensible that it has been decided that the Code of Conduct should not compel people to register their interests when they are unpaid and charitable. Having said that, I sincerely hope that noble Lords will declare their interests when they are trustees of a charity, because it adds to the authority with which they speak on the subject. Although it will not be compulsory, I like to think that people will continue to do that.

My amendment is basically designed to remove harassment from the charges that can be brought by one Member of Parliament against another. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, has made the point that this would then mean that a Member of your Lordships’ House could sue somebody in the Commons. I hope that, if by the use of this for party-political purposes it completely discredits the code, we might actually see the other place amending its way of doing business in the same way as I rather hope we might amend our way of doing business.

The wording of my amendment is worked out to completely exclude members of staff, and it does not include sexual harassment and bullying, which is very important. The real problem is that the Oxford English Dictionary is quite clear in saying that “harassment” means “trouble by repeated attacks”, which means that there must be more than one occasion on which the particular offence is committed. The noble Baroness has made the point that much of the code is lifted from the Equality Act, but there is no mention in the Act of redefining harassment, as it is in the Code of Conduct, to being down to an isolated incident. We therefore have a tremendous problem here with the definition of “harassment” in the beginning.

The recent case, which has been alluded to, of my noble friend Lady Meyer, was by anybody’s estimation a single incident, and I do not think you can apply harassment in its understood terms to that case. On top of that, I have talked to a number of lawyers in your Lordships’ House and they think that that case would have been dismissed by a court of law as being trivial. I do not think we are in the business of treating Members of your Lordships’ House more harshly than a court of law would. I am not here to reopen the case—I am not trying to do that—but I hope we can learn a few lessons from the cases that have happened.

There is no doubt in my mind that the code of conduct, as it is now worded, is leading to miscarriages of justice. We should be very mindful of this and of the problem that, actually, there are party-political politicians in your Lordships’ House. I was recently told by a noble friend that people are now refusing to go on parliamentary trips, or indeed share a taxi, with a Member of an opposition party, in case that can be used against them. This is a problem. If the onus is put on the complainant to say that they have been upset by some remark that somebody has made, this can be exploited very much in terms of party-political advantage. I do not think that is what the code of conduct is involved in at all.

Under the code of conduct, complaints can be brought for four years to the Commissioner for Standards and, therefore, it could be possible to stack up a number of cases that then emerge just before a general election and could be used for party-political advantage. I do not think that is how the code of conduct should be abused, which is why I am putting my amendment to the House today. I hope that the noble Baroness will seriously consider the dangers of the wording of the code of conduct, as it now is, because it could be badly abused in the future.

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Tabled by

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

At end insert, “and instructs the Conduct Committee to recommend changes to the new Code of Conduct and associated documents to remove the entitlement of members of either House to bring complaints of harassment against members of the House of Lords.”

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, would expect me to agree with her about the political nature of recent cases. But let us face it: they could be interpreted as political, and therefore it is very difficult to forecast that other politically motivated measures will not brought before her committee in the future. I think that even she might acknowledge that.

I can see your Lordships sitting here, thinking, “We’ve got a Conduct Committee that clears up disagreeable things—it’s never going to affect me as an individual. Let them get on with it and do the job they’ve been doing so far”. I would hesitate before I made that assumption, because there should be a note of caution.

The bar is very low to bring complaints against fellow Members, particularly in your Lordships’ House, and there are politically motivated people in this House. It is very easy to bring a complaint against somebody, because the onus is on the complainant, and the complainant’s view of whether they have been persecuted has to be taken up by the committee. When you end up in front of the Commissioner for Standards, he assumes that you are guilty, rather than innocent, because the complainant has brought the case to you. That is one of the problems that we are dealing with.

My advice to your Lordships, if this ever happens to you, is that the key thing is who you get to advise you. You have to have somebody you totally trust. I would be a little wary of hiring any old lawyer, because lawyers deal with the law of the land, and the powers of the Conduct Committee are much greater. Therefore, you want somebody who has a deep understanding of the Code of Conduct. This is one of the lessons we have learnt from people who have suffered and have had their reputation shredded by the findings of this committee in the past.

I end by paraphrasing John Donne: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls”. Your Lordships know how it ends.

Amendment to the Motion not moved.