Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)

I apologise to the House, because the only way that I can possibly speak in defence of my noble friend Lady Meyer is by putting down an amendment. I can reassure the noble Baroness, the Chairman of the Conduct Committee, that I will not press it to a Division. We are talking here about a total miscarriage of justice. My noble friend’s reputation has been completely shredded by the verdict that has come from the Conduct Committee. She has been accused of being a racist, and I cannot imagine anybody less racist than my noble friend. Let us look at the two cases which have been mentioned by the noble Baroness. The first is the accusation that she touched somebody’s hair and said at the time, “Is it all right if I touch your hair?” and touched their hair without waiting for their response. For that, she has been held up to be responsible for harassment. It almost defies credibility that harassment should take the form of somebody saying, “Is it all right if I touch your hair?” and then just touching a braid of somebody’s hair. The more serious accusation against my noble friend is of racism, connected with the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and her reference to “Lord Poppadom” when she was coming back from a dinner which had been held on the last day of the visit to Rwanda. Everybody had been drinking, apparently, and she had been drinking too. I am afraid the reality is that alcohol affects us differently, and certainly my advice to my noble friend Lady Meyer would be that it is not the best time to crack jokes, which is what she said she was doing when referring to “Lord Poppadom”. At the same time, you cannot accuse her of racism. This is nothing to do with racism. My noble friend Lady Meyer has a daughter-in-law who is half Eritrean; she has not got a racist bone in her body. She has been subjected to an extraordinary kangaroo court which is held in secret—