Baroness Kramer (LD)

My Lords, I am a signatory to this excellent amendment, but I am also speaking as a winder from these Benches. I shall speak very briefly, because I will touch on many of the issues in a later group, but this is so important. I am so glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey, brought forward an amendment that focuses on the issue of investigation and action. The noble Baroness has made the case powerfully, but for many people, it is such a shock to realise that it is the victim of sexual harassment—usually a woman, sometimes a man—who finds themselves, in effect, on trial. That is how the investigative process, when it happens, generally progresses. We all know that that is wrong and has to change. If you talk to people who have been victims and ask them what they want most as a response to having spoken out, despite what they have gone through, the answer, again and again, is twofold. First, they never want this to happen to anybody else; secondly, they want investigation and action. The systems we have in place never focus on that issue and drive it as the primary response when somebody speaks out with a serious complaint of this nature; we will be talking later about complaints of another nature. I hope very much that people will become engaged with this issue, which has been so well represented here today.