Two peers have been treated like ‘recalcitrant schoolboys’ for not turning up to their anti-bullying and sexual harassment training.
The lords have been barred from using Parliament’s bars and restaurants, in a move compared to telling children they ‘can’t go to the tuck shop’ because they didn’t show up to a lesson.
Both have ‘refused or failed’ to do the mandatory class and have had their boozing and dining privileges revoked in retaliation.
The behavioural training, which is mandatory for peers but not MPs, has faced criticism by some in the Lords, with claims that it is an ‘expensive farce’ and ‘patronising’.
Lord Kalms, 89, who used to run electronics dealer Dixons, and Lord Willoughby de Broke, an 82-year-old hereditary peer, got the slap on the wrist after a vote today.
A motion to ban them from ‘dining and banqueting facilities’ and the library until they have completed the training was passed by 315 to 86.
Lord Mance said: ‘The committee believes that this is a proportionate sanction, which balances on the one hand the importance of protecting staff with the undoubted right, on the other hand, of the two lords to continue exercising their core parliamentary functions.’
But Lord Cormack, who argued against the punishments and called for a deferral of a critical report, rubbished the punitive measures.
He said it is not ‘in accordance with natural justice’ to punish people who have ‘done no personal wrong or injury to anyone within or outside the House, but are being punished because they have not followed within a prescribed time and in a difficult year an instruction to follow a training course on how to behave’.
Lord Cormack added: ‘Do we really want to say to former captains of industry and others that we wish to treat you as recalcitrant schoolboys?
‘Because you didn’t do your prep you can’t go to the tuck shop or the library – especially as the library has a number of books on good behaviour.’
It previously emerged former Commons speaker Baroness Boothroyd was among those investigated for not completing the course, despite having undergone heart surgery.
Following an outcry the inquiry against the peer was dropped due to exceptional circumstances.
The conduct committee said the training had cost the Lords around £100,000.
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