Peers have been guilty of bullying and harassment of House of Lords staff, a wide-ranging new report into parliament’s unelected chamber has found.
Here are seven key points from Naomi Ellenbogen QC’s investigation into how staff are being treated.
1, Sexual harassment is a problem among peers
Ellenbogen’s investigation uncovered 94 accounts of sexual harassment by a peer. All of them related to male peers.
Here is a small selection of incidents outlined:
An elderly peer “reeking of alcohol at 6.30pm” asking to kiss a female worker and being told “no, that’s not in my job description”
A worker taking votes in the division lobbies being groped: “One member just started grabbing my backside and I had to tell him to stop it.”
One peer making a woman “downright uncomfortable” by putting his arm around people: “It’s creepy. It’s definitely sexual harassment. He’s also quite rude, so you don’t trust him. It’s hard to say, ‘do not say that’, because he also can explode.” Another woman said of the same member: “He’s a notorious bullying pervert, … you need to be careful and not be in a room alone with him…The onus is on you to protect yourself from them.”
Another reported older peers “looking up female members of staff’s skirts, whilst they were up a ladder”
Some peers “have reputations for being a bit ‘handsy’ or ‘a bit creepy’’, according to one worker
One female who worked for a peer said her employer made “frequent inappropriate comments” about staff members’ weight and appearance, made “intrusive” comments about their sex lives. The woman added: “He liked the fact that he could make people feel uncomfortable.”
2, But not one person made a formal complaint
Despite the “significant” number of alleged instances of sexual harassment, nobody launched a formal complaint.
This was a trend examined throughout the report, with a relatively low number of people submitting complaints about bullying, either by a peer or a House of Lords member of staff.
Ellenbogen said that staff feared reprisals, feared nothing would be done and that there was a culture of deference which discouraged complaints.
The QC concluded: “Staff have bullied and harassed other staff. Members have bullied and harassed staff.
“On the whole, staff who have experienced bullying and harassment have tended not to complain, formally or otherwise, in the belief that nothing will happen and/or for fear of reprisal.”
3, It is very old fashioned - and that is not a good thing
It is hardly a surprising fact that the unelected chamber is not “a modern workplace”.
Ellenbogen said the small offices, often with one or two people working in a room, was problematic
She said: “Contributors told me that, in particular when doors are closed, the environment can feel threatening and inappropriate behaviour can go unobserved by colleagues.”
Beyond the physical constraints of the building, people who contributed reported snobbery and a propensity to allow people and systems to go unchallenged.
Ellenbogen said: “Repeated criticism was made by virtually all contributors (including some members of the House) of the culture of deference, with contributors remarking on the excessive formality and hierarchy which pervades the House of Lords.”
One staff member said the Lords felt like “a feudal state and the peasants need to stay out of the way”. Another said: “It makes my skin crawl when people say ‘M’Lord’.”
4, Peers behave as though superior to staff
Ellenbogen was handed “numerous examples” of instances where peers’ “sense of superiority and entitlement” had seen them show a “lack of due courtesy and respect for staff”.
One person quoted in the report said one peer “sounded almost disgusted” at a staff member’s clothing - “how was I able to afford such a nice suit?”
They added many peers “just felt like they were better than you” and that one or two were even “known to be aggressive”.
They said: “There were known offenders, absolutely. The known offenders would dominate and talk down to you and other members of staff would give in to them so that they wouldn’t offend them.”
The report says there are “many repeat offenders”.
In one case, a baroness was said to have “ripped a phone out of a wall” and was “incredibly rude, face to face, with staff”.
“The chief whip dealt with her, but it has not stopped her poison,” said the worker.
In some cases, health conditions such as dementia were thought to have played a role in inappropriate or “demanding behaviour”, however.
“This is especially compounded by the decreasing ability to use their computer equipment, with no means for us removing either the devices or adjusting support,” said one worker, who listed ten peers who had behaved badly. “In the past, I have also been subjected to having someone thumping their fists on my computer screen.”
5, Lords force staff members to do inappropriate jobs
Peers are asking their staff to do jobs unconnected to parliamentary business, such as full out passport applications
Ellenbogen said peers also have a “lack of insight into their own demanding behaviour” and were unable or unwilling to see the difference between their own admin and that connected to their work as a lord.
“This could take the form of requests for research, or other assistance, which had nothing to do with parliamentary business (but which, for example, related to the private business interests of the member concerned), or of seeking assistance from PDS in connection with a faulty personal car-phone, or of asking for help with renewing a passport,” said Ellenbogen.
Staff were “reluctant” to say no “partly out of a desire to be as helpful as possible, but partly through fear of the reaction that they would receive”.
One worker said: “I was told, on day one, that you don’t challenge the peers and it’s obvious from the way everyone behaves.”
6, Doorkeepers ‘throw their weight around’
The report found doorkeepers “adopted a high-handed and inappropriate attitude” and often left staff “feeling humiliated in front of colleagues”.
Ellenbogen said she had “numerous contributions” from staff members that doorkeepers were “frequently challenging younger female and/or BAME colleagues” who were near the chamber, despite those people clearly displaying a security pass.
Doorkeepers are parliamentary staff tasked with maintaining good order and security in and around the chamber, unlike security guards and police who man the entrance to the building.
Ellenbogen said at one meeting when issues with doorkeepers were raised, staff members were ordered to “take time to get to know the doorkeepers better”, something she called a “wholly inappropriate” response which put “the onus on junior staff to modify their own behaviour”.
In more recent times, the behaviour criticised is said to have improved, though not to have ceased altogether,” she said. “Generally, contributors referred to the hierarchical, ‘military’ approach adopted by some of the doorkeepers (including towards one another), noting that a significant number of them had formerly served in the armed forces.”
7, Clerks are ‘treated differently’ to workers
Ellenbogen found all “positions of power” in the Lords were filled by clerks - civil servants which advise peers on legal, procedural and some policy matters - and that there is a divide between them and staff.
“I cannot overestimate the embeddedness of the culture that the clerk is supreme and everyone else is superfluous,” one contributor said. “Everything comes round to protect the clerk.”
“There are two tiers; an us and them thing – clerks and then us,” said another.
Ellenbogen said the training of some clerks had to improve, with many entering management at a younger age after being put on a fast-track civil service scheme.
“Sudden and explosive losses of temper, by even senior clerks, were regularly mentioned to me,” she said. “Many contributors’ reported experience was that such inappropriate behaviours and sense of self-belief go unchecked and uncorrected, meaning that they perpetuate and are compounded throughout the clerk’s career.”
One employee of a clerk said her boss was “very good at exceptionally technical work” but had “a lot of behavioural issues that really need to be dealt with”.
They added: “His lack of ability to control his anger is really worrying. It can be likened to an abusive relationship, particularly where you are sharing a small room and his veins go red and pop out.”
In response to the report, the Lord Speaker, Lord Fowler, speaking as chairman of the House of Lords Commission said: “In December 2018 we established an independent inquiry into bullying and harassment in the House of Lords which was carried out by Naomi Ellenbogen QC.
“Today the report has been published. We thank Naomi Ellenbogen for her report and analysis and we are grateful to all who contributed to her work.
“We have already made important improvements including introducing a Parliament-wide behaviour code, an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme and appointing a new conduct committee to which lay members will be appointed shortly, but there is still a great deal of work to do.
“We will be carefully considering Naomi Ellenbogen’s report to determine how we can effectively take the recommendations forward. The next commission meeting will take place on Wednesday July 17. Everyone deserves a workplace which has high standards of behaviour and mutual respect. Bullying and harassment have no place in the House ofLords.
“This report is an important step in ensuring we, the commission, and the House of Lords administration, can work together to achieve that goal.
“It is because we are committed to this that we asked for this inquiry to be conducted. We are determined to address the issues the report highlights and to make the House ofLords better.”