PEERS are set to be given a new secrecy right in their register of interests, following a review of the House of Lords code of conduct.
Members of the upper House are to be given the right to keep secret their non-financial interests, which they are currently required to declare.
Chairwoman of the House of Lords conduct committee Baroness Manningham-Buller (below) told peers: “Our aim is to simplify and clarify the rules. What we have tried to do is make them shorter, clearer and less bureaucratic.
“Public confidence in the House requires transparency over members’ outside financial interests. I think we are probably all agreed on that.”
She added: “The public interest in requiring disclosure of members’ unpaid roles, for example, with a voluntary or charitable organisation is far less clear.
“The rules governing non-financial interest have over the years become more wider and more complex, resulting in several members falling into inadvertent breach.”
Baroness Manningham-Buller said that she wanted peers “to have a wide range of interests”.
She added: “We concluded that the bureaucratic burden of the rules of declaring non-financial interests were disproportionate when compared with a small potential benefit to transparency.
“So, we therefore recommended ending the requirement to register and declare non-financial interests.
“Members will still be able to declare them in debate if they are relevant to the matter under discussion and if time allows, but this is not an enforceable rule in our view.”
Elsewhere, the former MI5 boss rejected a call to strip MPs of their right to complain about harassment by peers.
The proposal was made by Tory former minister Lord Hamilton of Epsom, who previously defended the conduct of a Conservative colleague who called a British-Asian peer “Lord Poppadom”.
Baroness Meyer, who also touched a Labour MP’s braids without her permission, was suspended for three weeks and told to undergo bespoke behaviour training.
Responding to Lord Hamilton’s proposed amendment to the code of conduct, Lady Manningham-Buller said it would create a situation where members of the House could still bring complaints of harassment against MPs but MPs could not complain against peers.
She said: “I doubt the Commons would stand for that so we risk a tit-for-tat and the potential unravelling of the behaviour code.”
The independent crossbencher, who chairs the House of Lords conduct committee, added: “Harassment in the workplace is unlawful […] I do not believe that a member of this House who is subject to harassment by another member should be deprived of the right to complain about behaviour that is unlawful.”
