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The conduct of Lord Ahmed Contents

Chapter 8: Conclusions

Application of the Code

Parliamentary duties and activities

482.The Code of Conduct establishes the conduct expected of members “in the course of their parliamentary duties”. Until 30 April 2019 this was the remit of all aspects of the Code.

483.On 30 April 2019, the House agreed changes to the Code, including:

484.This investigation took place under the edition of the Code of Conduct that incorporated those changes: the eighth edition. The Code has been again updated since the evidence gathering phase of this was completed.16

485.The extension to duties and activities applies under the revised Code whether the specific Behaviour Code provisions and definitions—which under the eighth edition of the Code were retrospective only to 21 June 2017—are engaged or whether such conduct might be considered to constitute a failure to act on personal honour.

486.I dismissed Ms Zaman’s original complaint as it was made before the revisions to the Code and Lord Ahmed’s conduct was not in relation to a parliamentary duty—broadly speaking, it was not related to any sort of parliamentary proceeding. I accepted Ms Zaman’s re-submitted complaint after the revisions to the Code as, on the basis of Ms Zaman’s complaint, Lord Ahmed’s letter to the police and his alleged subsequent promises to provide further help appeared to constitute a parliamentary activity—his letter was written on House of Lords headed paper and could only have been received by Commissioner Dick as a letter from a parliamentarian carrying out parliamentary activities.

Behaviour Code provisions and personal honour

487.The House of Lords Code of Conduct incorporates Parliament’s Behaviour Code, including detailed definitions of what constitutes bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct.

488.Paragraph 3.3 Appendix B of the Guide to the Code of Conduct sets out the definition of sexual misconduct:

“Sexual misconduct incorporates a range of behaviours including sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, voyeurism and any other conduct of a sexual nature that is non-consensual or has the purpose or effect of threatening, intimidating, undermining, humiliating or coercing a person.”

489.Paragraph 5.2 sets out some of the behaviours constituting verbal sexual misconduct, including, “Treating someone less favourably because they have rejected or submitted to unwanted sexual conduct.”

490.Paragraph 5.4 sets out some of the behaviours in the category of physical sexual misconduct, including:

491.When the revisions to the Code of Conduct were agreed on 30 April 2019, the specific provisions about bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct were made retrospective to 21 June 2017.17

492.However, the Code of Conduct has a long standing requirement that Members must act on their personal honour when carrying out their parliamentary duties and activities, and complaints of breach of personal honour could be made up to four years after the alleged behaviour complained of.18

493.Personal honour is not defined in the Code because it is based on the culture and conventions of the House as a whole and therefore “any definition of ‘personal honour’, while it might achieve temporary ‘legal certainty’, would quickly become out-moded.”19

494.If a complaint alleges dishonourable conduct , I have to consider what the “sense of the House as a whole as to the standards of conduct expected of individual members” is, and decide if the alleged behaviour would be “in accordance with the standards expected by the House as a whole”.20

495.In my view, the very fact that the House of Lords has introduced a Behaviour Code which provides that bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct are breaches of the Code of Conduct, is an indication that such behaviour is contrary to the standards expected by the House as a whole and therefore may constitute a breach of personal honour.

Principles of conduct in public life

496.Paragraph 9 of the Code of Conduct sets out that:

“Members of the House should observe the seven general principles of conduct identified by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. These principles will be taken into consideration when any allegation of breaches of the provisions in other sections of the Code is under investigation and should act as a guide to members in considering the requirement to act always on their personal honour”.

497.These principles include:

Application to this case

498.Ms Zaman complained that Lord Ahmed:

499.I have not upheld the allegations that Lord Ahmed:

500.Therefore I do not find any breach of the Code on these matters.

501.However, I have found that Lord Ahmed:

502.These are all matters that could be breaches of the Code of Conduct.

Was Lord Ahmed carrying out a parliamentary activity in relation to Ms Zaman from February to November 2017?

503.Before considering each of these findings individually, there is a preliminary matter that has to be addressed: whether Lord Ahmed’s behaviour towards Ms Zaman after sending the letter on 2 March 2017 was covered by the Code of Conduct at all. On the basis of Ms Zaman’s complaint I concluded that there was sufficient evidence that at least some of his behaviour constituted parliamentary activity to warrant an investigation. It is necessary to reconsider this question in the light of all the evidence now gathered in the course of our investigation.

504.Lord Ahmed has said from the outset of the investigation that his parliamentary activity on Ms Zaman’s behalf ended on or before 2 March 2017, when he claimed that she had said that she did not want to pursue the matter if this would mean revealing her identity to the police. He asserted that he was therefore not engaged in any parliamentary activity on Ms Zaman’s behalf for some months before their sexual relationship began.

505.While I found Lord Ahmed’s initial evidence that his parliamentary activity had ended on 2 March 2017 not to be correct, there remains good evidence that he had stopped trying to help Ms Zaman some months before their sexual relationship began.

Ms Zaman’s expectation of help from Lord Ahmed

506.While I accept that Lord Ahmed had stopped actively helping Ms Zaman by the beginning of May 2017, the evidence indicates that this was not made clear to Ms Zaman and that she continued to anticipate help from Lord Ahmed (hence her text message of 14 July 2017).

507.Rather, I have found that from 2 March 2017 to the end of their relationship in November 2017, Lord Ahmed either claimed to Ms Zaman that he was continuing to help her, or, when they were not in communication because she had blocked him from her phone, did nothing to let her know that he was no longer helping her, even though he had the means to do so via email.

508.Lord Ahmed allowed Ms Zaman to believe that he was helping her by failing to inform her that:

509.His active deception began when he sent Ms Zaman the letter from the police of 3 May 2017, after her text in July 2017, and told her he would try to arrange a meeting with the police. From then until the end of their relationship he held himself out as seeking to help her.

510.I therefore find that, while Lord Ahmed was taking no steps to help Ms Zaman for the majority of their interactions, he allowed and encouraged her to believe that he was.

Whether dishonestly offering to engage in a parliamentary activity constitutes a parliamentary activity

511.In the light of that finding, the question to be determined is whether a member who holds himself out to be undertaking a parliamentary activity on behalf of an individual, and who the individual reasonably believes is undertaking such a parliamentary activity, is subject to the Code of Conduct, even though he is lying about the fact that he is carrying out the activity.

512.The Code does not deal directly with this point, nor is parliamentary activity defined in the Code or Guide to the Code. However, paragraph 8 of the Guide to the Code of Conduct says:

“A member who expresses a clear willingness to breach the Code (for example, by attempting to negotiate an agreement to provide parliamentary services in return for payment) demonstrates a failure to act on his or her personal honour, and is thus in breach of paragraph 8(b) of the Code.”

513.This provision is unequivocal: offering to do something in breach of the Code, whether or not you actually do it, is a breach of the requirement to act on personal honour and a breach of the Code. It is implicit in this paragraph that this would cover an insincere intention to undertake a parliamentary duty or activity as well as a genuine offer to do so.

514.A failure to act on personal honour only engages the Code if the failure relates to the Member’s parliamentary duties or activities. Therefore as paragraph 8 of the Guide states that an offer to do something in breach of the Code in itself amounts to a breach of the Code, whether or not anything is actually done or was ever intended to be done, it must follow that the offer must be a parliamentary activity.

515.There is no doubt that Lord Ahmed was carrying out a parliamentary activity when he wrote to Commissioner Dick on 2 March 2017. Regardless of his subsequent email exchange with the MSKU in March 2017, his parliamentary activity continued at least until 3 May 2017, when he received the reply from the police, as that letter had the potential to take Ms Zaman’s matter forward, even if Lord Ahmed chose to do nothing with it. Indeed, I consider Lord Ahmed still to have been acting as a parliamentarian (whether he wished to or not) when he finally forwarded Ms Zaman the reply from police after her text message of 14 July 2017.

516.Had Lord Ahmed made it clear to Ms Zaman, either on receipt of the reply from the police in May 2017 or after he had forwarded it to her after 14 July 2017, that he could not act any further, that might have ended his parliamentary activity, even if she then followed up the offer of a meeting with the police.

517.However, he did not do so, and Ms Zaman continued to believe, with good reason, that Lord Ahmed was continuing to carry out a parliamentary activity on her behalf.

518.Therefore, I conclude that from February to November 2017 Lord Ahmed was either providing Ms Zaman with help as a parliamentarian or holding himself out as doing so. Therefore, throughout this time, his behaviour in relation to Ms Zaman was subject to the Code of Conduct.

Allegation: Lord Ahmed put his hand on Ms Zaman’s upper thigh, which was unexpected, uninvited and unwelcome

519.Ms Zaman complained that on 2 March 2017 Lord Ahmed put his hand on her upper thigh, which was unexpected, uninvited and unwelcome.

520.I found it was more likely than not that Ms Zaman complained to Ms Butt that Lord Ahmed had put his hand on her upper thigh, and that Ms Butt had a conversation about this with Lord Ahmed, in which he denied wrongdoing and said to her “Absolute nonsense. I never touched her—nothing.”

521.That being the case, Lord Ahmed’s claim that the allegation of sexual assault was in response to the break-up of Ms Zaman’s relationship with X in December 2017, for which she held him responsible, is shown to be untenable, and he must have known it was not true.

522.I found it was more likely than not that Ms Zaman was telling the truth when she said that Lord Ahmed did put his hand on the top of her leg, close to her “private parts”, on 2 March 2017.

523.Lord Ahmed’s conduct amounts to sexual misconduct, under the definitions in the Behaviour Code. Although the Behaviour Code provisions did not at the time of the complaint apply to conduct before 21 June 2017 I consider behaviour that constitutes sexual misconduct to be contrary to the requirement to act on personal honour.

524.I therefore conclude that when he put his hand on Ms Zaman’s upper thigh on 2 March 2017, Lord Ahmed breached the requirement of the Code of Conduct that he should act on his personal honour when engaged in a parliamentary activity.

Allegation: Lord Ahmed failed to progress Ms Zaman’s complaint and lied to her about his actions and intentions

525.This complaint covers a number of the findings in the report.

526.In April 2017 Lord Ahmed told the police, who had contacted him in response to his letter to Commissioner Dick, that Ms Zaman was not willing to meet them or speak to them. In March 2020 he told me that Ms Zaman had never expected him to do more that write a letter to the police.

527.I found it more likely than not that Lord Ahmed was not telling the truth when he told the police that Ms Zaman was not willing to meet them, and when he told us that she had never expected him to do more than pass her concerns to the police.

528.I found it is more likely than not that Lord Ahmed’s communications with the police after sending his letter of 2 March 2017 are explained by Ms Zaman’s rejection of his advances on 2 March 2017 and, possibly, Ms Butt’s criticism of him for his behaviour on that occasion.

529.Subsequently, Lord Ahmed did not inform Ms Zaman about what he had told the police about her alleged wishes, nor did he contact her when he received the reply of 3 May 2017.

530.I found that in failing to inform Ms Zaman of these events Lord Ahmed dishonestly allowed Ms Zaman to believe that he was still helping her.

531.Ms Zaman texted Lord Ahmed on 14 July 2017, asking if a reply had been received to Lord Ahmed’s letter to the police of 2 March 2017. Ms Zaman said that Lord Ahmed subsequently sent her the letter. Lord Ahmed said that he had no communication with Ms Zaman regarding the letter or her complaint.

532.I found that it is more likely than not that, in response to Ms Zaman’s text of 14 July 2017, Lord Ahmed sent her the reply from the police dated 3 May 2017 at some point after 14 July 2017 and before she visited his house in September 2017. He still did not inform her of his communications with the police in April 2017, and therefore actively deceived her in relation to his intentions to help.

533.Ms Zaman said that Lord Ahmed suggested that she should come to his house in East London to discuss the offer of a meeting made in the letter of 3 May 2017. Lord Ahmed says that Ms Zaman, with whom he had become friendly over the summer, said that she wanted to ask his advice on a proposal of marriage, and insisted on meeting at his house rather than in a more public place.

534.I found that it is more likely than not that Ms Zaman went to Lord Ahmed’s house at his invitation to discuss the offer made by the police to meet her. However, he had no intention of forwarding her concerns to the police and his use of the letter to lure Ms Zaman to his house was dishonest.

535.Ms Zaman and Lord Ahmed had a sexual relationship from the first meeting at his house in September 2017 until late November 2017. Ms Zaman said that throughout this time she continued to press for a meeting with the police and Lord Ahmed continued to say that he would arrange it when he had time to do so. Lord Ahmed said that the issue to do with her complaint had ended in March 2017, and was never raised subsequently, including during their sexual relationship.

536.I found that it is more likely than not that Lord Ahmed continued to offer to arrange a meeting with the police between September and November 2017, and therefore he was holding himself out to be engaged in parliamentary activities during their sexual relationship.

537.Throughout this period Lord Ahmed was engaged in parliamentary activity and was therefore required to act on his personal honour. Acting in accordance with the principles of public life detailed in the Code, including the requirements to act honestly and with integrity, is part of acting on personal honour. My findings above demonstrate that at several points in their relationship Lord Ahmed did not act honestly or with integrity.

538.I conclude that by acting dishonestly and without integrity, in each of the listed points Lord Ahmed breached the requirement of the Code of Conduct to act on his personal honour.

539.Much of this behaviour, occurring after 21 June 2017, could also breach the Behaviour Code. For instance Lord Ahmed’s deception in relation to his communication with the police in April 2017 was ongoing, and would probably meet the definition of sexual misconduct, as it amounted to treating Ms Zaman less favourably because she had rejected his advances. However, as Lord Ahmed’s behaviour was a single course of conduct, I do not think it appropriate or necessary to separately look at possible breaches of the behaviour Code in relation to behaviour that has been found in breach of the personal honour requirements.

Allegation: Lord Ahmed exploited Ms Zaman even though he knew she was receiving treatment for anxiety and depression

540.The question of exploitation—lying about his intentions in order to pursue a sexual relationship with Ms Zaman—is dealt with under the preceding allegations.

541.I have found that Lord Ahmed knew of Ms Zaman’s emotional and psychological vulnerability from the time that he was contacted by Ms Butt in February 2017.

542.The fact that Lord Ahmed knew, even before he first met her, that Ms Zaman was suffering from anxiety and depression exacerbates the seriousness of his breach of the requirement to act on his personal honour.

Co-operation with my investigation

543.Paragraph 24 of the Code of Conduct requires a member subject to investigation to co-operate with it. Cooperating with my investigation is therefore a parliamentary duty, and, as such, subject to the requirement of the Code of Conduct that members should observe the seven general principles of public life, including honesty and integrity.

544.The findings I have made based on the evidence in relation to Ms Zaman’s complaints show that it is more likely than not that on important issues Lord Ahmed persistently gave deliberately inaccurate and misleading accounts to conceal his behaviour towards Ms Zaman. Rather than provide an honest account of his conduct, he attempted to undermine the evidence provided by Ms Zaman through denial and dishonesty.

545.Most of the examples of his mendacity are contained in the findings set out above. However, in addition to these, there are the following findings arising from the investigation.

546.I find that it is more likely than not that during the investigation Lord Ahmed deliberately gave a false account of the circumstances before and at the meeting at the Sahara Grill with the intention of creating the appearance of clear blue water between the conclusion of his activities as a parliamentarian and the start of his sexual relationship with Ms Zaman.

547.Some of his attempts have been egregious; I am particularly thinking of his comment that he was not given all the evidence obtained during the investigation before having to respond to the allegations. He also complained that Ms Zaman had behaved improperly by not informing him what she meant when she referred in her email and statement sent to him on 22 February 2017 to having made anonymous complaints before contacting him.

548.In the context of the robust findings of dishonesty made on the basis of Lord Ahmed’s evidence to us, the only basis for such complaints that I can make out is that Lord Ahmed feels he would have told a more convincing story if he had had all the facts from the start. This approach shows an astonishing willingness to reveal his disregard for the principles of honesty and integrity embedded in the Code and in the concept of personal honour.

549.I consider that in conducting himself in this manner he has failed genuinely to co-operate with my investigation. He has failed to act on his personal honour, as evidenced by his dishonesty and lack of integrity.

16 Though the Code was updated during my investigation, my work has been conducted under the provisions of the eighth edition.

17 This cut-off has since been removed.

18 This period has since been extended to six years. In limited circumstances this period may be extended even further.

19 Paragraph 7, Guide to the Code of Conduct, eighth edition

20 Ibid.



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