Sanctioning peers for missing workshops makes a mockery of the Lords
Stanley Kalms in 1997 (PA Images)
The Westminster farce that is the House of Lords anti-bullying workshops has reached a new pinnacle of absurdity this week. Peers have voted by 315 to 86 to ban two of their number, Lord Kalms and Lord Willoughby de Broke, from parliamentary bars, restaurants and libraries.
Their crime? Failure to attend a session of the “Valuing Everyone” workshops by the beginning of April. Some 60 other peers also missed the deadline for non-attendance, but this is the first time that any of them have been penalised. One dissident peer, Lord Cormack, asked: “Do we really want to say to former captains of industry and others that we wish to treat you as recalcitrant schoolboys? Because you didn’t do your prep you can’t go to the tuck shop or the library?”
The first point that strikes the outsider is that the parliamentary authorities are punishing everyone for the sins of a few. Mandatory retraining sessions are often imposed on those found guilty of careless driving, but not on all drivers. For peers of a certain age — Lord Kalms is 89, Lord Willoughby de Broke 82 — attending workshops during the pandemic may be especially onerous. Baroness Boothroyd, 91, missed her session due to convalescence from heart surgery. Lord Heseltine, 88, a vociferous opponent of the programme, was also incapacitated, while Lord Owen, 82, never received his invitation. Not every no-show was elderly: the Scottish lingerie tycoon Baroness Mone, 49, was also among them. All were named and shamed regardless. There is no suggestion that any of them is guilty of misconduct, but singling out two peers for sanctions is hurtful, to say the least.
Full disclosure: I have known Lord Kalms for more than a decade. A sharper mind and more genial company would be hard to find in either chamber. He will not miss the fleshpots of the Palace of Westminster, but his noble colleagues may well miss his worldly wisdom. For more than 60 years Stanley Kalms (pictured in 1997) built up Dixon’s into one of Britain’s most successful high street chains. He probably has more experience of how to deal with workplace bullying and sexual harassment in his little finger than the worthies of Challenge Consultancy, the firm that has been running the “Valuing Everyone” workshops for the tidy sum of £885,000. It would make more sense to ask members of either House with relevant careers, such as Lord Kalms or Baroness Mone, to share their knowledge with MPs and peers. Their presence would undoubtedly incentivise workshop attendance.
Yet this whole approach is bound to give the impression of teaching grandmothers (and grandfathers) to suck eggs. It seems designed rather to obviate the suggestion that the problem is institutional than to deal with the handful of individuals who behave badly. Examples of “bullying” are said to include asking aides to order theatre tickets, while complimenting a female member of staff on her outfit apparently constitutes “harassment”. This sounds like an excess of corporate zeal being applied to a generation for whom certain old-fashioned attitudes or chivalry come naturally.
It should go without saying that there should be zero tolerance of bullying and harassment in our legislature, but the fact that a well-known Speaker of the House of Commons escaped sanctions, despite a large body of evidence, suggests that the real problem for staff at Westminster may not be so much the gallantries and manners of the past as the importation of unpleasant new habits, fed by the micro-aggressions and lewd language of social media.
Once Parliament returns to normal — sooner rather than later, we must hope — the Lords should think again about how to police conduct at work. Expensive workshops and invidious sanctions are not the answer. Better, surely, to create an atmosphere in which whistleblowers can come forward, while complaints are dealt with swiftly and fairly. The Lord Speaker, Lord McFall of Alcluith, should invite suggestions from his fellow peers to find a new disciplinary procedure that commands public support, does not cost the taxpayer large sums of money and is seen to be fit for purpose.
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