Members of Lords involved in serious misconduct at Westminster, watchdog warns

Peers have been behind serious misconduct against parliamentary colleagues, it has been revealed at Westminster, in the face of a Tory call to gag complainants.

Baroness Manningham-Buller, who chairs the House of Lords Conduct Committee, said a rule change argued for by Conservatives would serve only to prevent genuine victims of harassment from coming forward.

While in some instances details had not been made public, as the complainant wished to remain anonymous, the independent crossbencher and former MI5 chief told the House there had been “serious cases” involving peers.

Lady Manningham-Buller made her comments as she rejected a bid to remove the entitlement of members of either House to bring a complaint of harassment against a peer, following a review of the conduct rulebook.

The proposal was made by Tory former minister Lord Hamilton of Epsom, after a Conservative colleague was suspended from the House for three weeks for twice calling a British-Asian peer “Lord Poppadom” as they shared a taxi on an official trip.

Baroness Meyer had also touched a Labour MP’s hair braids without her permission.

Lord Hamilton has claimed she was a victim of a “miscarriage of justice” and suggested the complaints were politically motivated.

The Conservative peer said: “It’s no doubt in my mind that the code of conduct, as it’s now worded, is leading to miscarriages of justice and I think we should be very mindful of this.

“Also the problems that, actually, there are party political politicians in this House. I was recently told of a case by a colleague that actually there are people refusing to go on parliamentary trips now or indeed share a taxi with a member of the opposition party in case that can be used against them.

“That is a problem. If the onus is actually put on the complainant to say that they’ve been upset by some remark that somebody’s made, this can be exploited very much in terms of party political advantage.”

But Lady Manningham-Buller said: “I would like to assure the House that the members of the conduct committee are fully alive to the possibility of politically motivated complaints, as are the commissioners.

“We understand that we work in a political environment and we have robust processes for identifying and rejecting frivolous or vexatious complaints.

“But in truth I suggest the risk identified by Lord Hamilton is more imaginary than substantial.”

She added: “I would suggest that all Lord Hamilton’s amendment would achieve would be to prevent genuine victims of such harassment from complaining.

“And let me be clear, there are victims. Even though allegations by members of either House against noble Lords are extremely rare, there have been cases where serious misconduct has occurred.

“In some cases the details are not in the public domain, because the complainant wished to remain anonymous, but I can assure the House there have been serious cases involving noble Lords.”

Earlier in the debate, other Tory peers had likened the case of Lady Meyer to a playground argument.

Conservative former Cabinet minister Lord Lilley said: “Surely the presumption is that we are old enough and sensible enough to deal with offensive remarks made by other colleagues without running off to teacher and saying ‘please miss, please miss, Ginny insulted me on the playground’.”

He added: “It’s ridiculous that one member should bring that sort of minor incident before this procedure.”

Tory peer Lord Balfe said: “I was appalled by the report on Baroness Meyer, where really it seemed that a playground scrap had been elevated into a great controversy.”

Liberal Democrat Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer said she was “disappointed but perhaps not surprised” by Lord Hamilton’s proposal.

She said: “It suggests that if we suffer or our colleagues suffer something that involves harassment we should just keep quiet.

“That smacks to me of the worst aspects of English public school life, hopefully a thing of the past in schools now, but in Lord Hamilton’s mind where not grassing on one’s fellows is more important than ensuring intimidating behaviour is stopped.

“Cruel or bad behaviour thrives in a culture of secrecy and we should have none of it in this House.”