The Peter Mandelson case shows peers need stronger sanctions

The Mandelson case demonstrates why – for the good of public trust in parliament – it is important for the House of Lords to have a mechanism to remove peerages. 

Commons disciplinary processes have been made more independent

Reforms made to House of Commons disciplinary processes in the wake of the “me-too” scandal now prevent MPs sitting in judgment on each other on bullying and harassment allegations (under a scheme known as the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme or ICGS). Instead, these are independently investigated, and serious findings are passed for decision to an independent expert panel made up of non-parliamentary experts – which also functions as an independent appeal mechanism for decisions on breaches of the wider code of conduct. 

The House of Lords, by contrast, has decided to retain its self-governance on bullying and harassment cases, rejecting the involvement of an equivalent independent panel. The Lords standards commissioners work with independent investigators, as in the Commons, but their conclusions and recommended sanctions must be agreed by the Lords Conduct Committee. This is chaired by a crossbencher and includes four lay members, but they are still outnumbered by five peers. 

If mounting political pressure had not prompted Baron Mandelson to resign his Lords membership, it is possible that revelations about his behaviour might have stirred the Lords standards system into action. His behaviour before he was appointed to the Lords would have fallen under the broader Lords standards system which is substantially similar to that in the Commons (rather than the ICGS), apart from the fact that MPs can appeal to the Independent Expert Panel, which peers cannot. 

If such a case had been pursued, the House could have chosen to expel Lord Mandelson, although such moves are extremely rare. The Conduct Committee recommended the expulsion of Lord Ahmed in 2020, but he ultimately resigned his membership of the House before the sanction could be imposed.

The focus on standards brought by the Mandelson case is an opportunity for the Lords to revisit the question of whether its processes are independent enough to command public confidence that those given the honour of sitting in the upper house are fit and proper to remain legislators and to enjoy the privileges conferred upon them.

Legislation to remove peerages must be tightly drawn

The Commons has a further mechanism in place to ensure there can be real consequences if an MP’s behaviour is judged to have brought the House into disrepute. A suspension of 10 days or more imposed following an independent standards inquiry is one of three possible triggers for the Recall of MPs Act (the others being a false claim for allowances or a criminal conviction resulting in a prison sentence). Passed in 2015, the Act enables constituents to take a view in between general elections on whether they wish an MP guilty of a misdemeanour to remain in public office, via the two-stage mechanism of a petition and a by-election.

There is no comparable mechanism to readily remove a peerage from a member of the House of Lords, once it has been conferred by the monarch. A peer can decide to retire or resign from the House and decline to make use of the title, but this does not remove it, unless specific primary legislation is passed. This means that the barrier to a peer losing their title is not the seriousness of their misdemeanour but whether a government sees fit to spend scarce parliamentary time legislating to sanction an individual. This is an extremely high bar – the last time a government summoned the will to do so was over a century ago in 1917.

The role of the monarch in conferring a peerage on members of the Lords, and hence the difficulty in removing it, is an historical artefact. To bring the Lords into line with the Commons – so that those who become parliamentarians through appointment can be held to similar standards as those who are elected to office – the government would need to pass legislation providing a new mechanism for the removal of peerages generally, rather than a specific piece of law being required in each case.

Such a bill would need to be drawn up carefully – with clearly specified circumstances in which a peerage could be removed – so as to avoid the risk of it being used vindictively or held over independently minded peers as a threat by a bullying government. But the Recall of MPs Act has demonstrated that such careful drafting is possible, and the current situation has made the case for its importance.

Getting such legislation right is more important than passing it urgently. The only hurry is to capitalise on the strength of feeling generated by the Mandelson case to prevent this important change being watered down or discarded by the vested interests who so often conspire to frustrate parliamentary reform.