Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for this discussion. I share a lot of the concerns already raised, especially those from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, because I have a dread of mission creep. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, I will look at some of the specific wording in the code, because I have read it several times and will raise some things that worry me. I encourage one aim of the review—that is, to shorten the code. At present, there seems to be an overly complicated deluge of details on rules that, dangerously, threaten to drown out the general principles around standards that we are so concerned about—the very standards that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has just indicated are so important. We have to be able to see them very clearly. At present, the problem is that the rules are all you can see. There is also a danger of turning the code into a counterproductive box-ticking exercise, if it is dominated by rules in this way. It means that you can feel virtuous obeying the letter of the rules rather than believing in or having any feel for their spirit. We have seen over recent weeks with the “glasses for passes” or Taylor Swift ticket sagas and so on that the “We are acting according to the rules” defence does not engender public trust, regardless of whether it was within the rules. My main reason for wanting to speak today is that my interests and knowledge are in relation to how, in broader society, straightforward do’s and don’ts about, for example, professional conflicts of interest have gradually seeped into the more subjective and intimate spheres of interpersonal relations and the problems that can create. The devil is often in the detail, and later I shall raise questions around problematic parts of the small-print definitions of bullying and harassment. But there is actually an absence of detail in the part of the code that is mandatory for all noble Lords. The code demands attendance at seminars designed “to raise awareness of, and to prevent, bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct”. Yet there is no detail about the contents of these compulsory sessions. How can we debate their effectiveness here without being able to scrutinise what they say? That is hardly transparent. These compulsory seminars have created headlines in the last couple of years when various high-profile noble Lords were disciplined—indeed, named and shamed—for non-attendance. But I challenge the value of these courses per se. I raise this with some trepidation, because the implicit accusation lurks in the code that not taking these courses somehow implies that you are not taking bullying or harassment seriously. Yet these sorts of training modules, which are ubiquitous throughout the public sector and of notoriously mixed quality, can be politically contentious, deploying the worst and most divisive EDI stereotypes and using an insultingly patronising and hectoring tone. Worse, they act as a form of compelled speech. You have to nod along and give the correct answers to prove that you are not guilty of harbouring some dodgy or malign attitudes. Why are there compulsory seminars only for these behaviours? Why not have courses on financial propriety or the correct use of political donations? Given the mission creep front, I am not suggesting that, of course. Yet somehow, bullying, harassment and sexual harassment are treated as especially grievous. The backdrop to some of my reservations over the part of the code relating especially to bullying and harassment is the way that, over the last 20 years or so, interpersonal relations in the workplace have become politicised while, conversely, the ordinary conflicts of public life, such as political disagreements, are being conducted in personal terms. Politics has become personal in the worst possible way. What is more, the accusation that a public figure has behaved inappropriately towards another person can exact a far greater price than any amount of corruption. That alone means that it can be too easily weaponised. I first encountered this a couple of decades ago when I cut my teeth as a trade union rep at an FE college. Shortly after management added bullying to its disciplinary procedures, there was a spate of complaints. I represented two members of staff, one of whom was accused by an incompetent fellow member of staff and the other by a student who struggled academically. Both, as it turned out, were victims of false allegations and were eventually totally exonerated, but the process dragged on for months. At the end of it all, one of the accused took early retirement and, after an exemplary 30 years as a lecturer, was left feeling bitter and betrayed. The other had a nervous breakdown. I learned then that, often, the process is the punishment. I have tracked similarly destructive ways in which anti-bullying and harassment codes have spread in universities, as well as how they are often used by activists to cancel speakers and hound and silence lecturers whose so-called toxic views are deemed bullying by some students. Only recently, closer to home, the Equality and Human Rights Commission eventually closed the case against the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, after many hellish months. She was being investigated because EHRC employees filed bullying complaints that seem to have been ideologically motivated because of her completely correct stance, as chair of the EHRC, in clarifying the protection of biological women’s rights. One reason we see such cases is that the charge of bullying can be used as a political weapon in a witch hunt to discredit opponents, since the definitions of bullying are so nebulous and subjective. This is even admitted in the code’s appendix, which details these definitions: “Bullying may be characterised as offensive … behaviour … that can make a person feel vulnerable, upset, undermined”, et cetera. We are told: “Whether conduct constitutes bullying will depend on … the perception of the person experiencing the conduct”. Perhaps less cynically, the data shows that, once anti-bullying procedures are formalised by an organisation, claims of victimisation inevitably grow. That is hardly surprising; increasing prevalence may be less a response to actual behaviour and more about people’s changing interpretation of that behaviour. Much of what is listed in the code seems almost to incite complaints about minor incidents. Under bullying, we have “being sarcastic”—I mean, what? I have just done it. It also lists using “inappropriate nicknames” and “practical jokes”. We are told that bullying can be verbal or non-verbal, “may be persistent or an isolated incident and may manifest obviously or be hidden or insidious”. That is a very wide brief. Can the committee explain how such vast parameters will not encourage trivial complaints? What procedures exist—