Chapter 5: Information from the Clerk of the Parliaments regarding Lord Maginnis
105.In the course of my investigations, I was made aware that Lord Maginnis had been the subject of complaints made previously, not to me or my office but through informal routes within the Administration recorded in the Clerk of the Parliaments’ office. I considered it relevant to obtain some information about these previous complaints.
106.I therefore wrote to the Clerk of the Parliaments, Ed Ollard, to discuss what it would be proper for him to provide to me. We agreed that he would not give me any information that could identify those who had raised concerns and complaints via these informal routes, but he could give me some information about the complaints.
107.I was not writing with a view to persuading previous complainants to make a complaint to me, but to understand what contact officials in the House of Lords had had with Lord Maginnis regarding complaints about his behaviour, and what his response had been to complaints being raised with him. I considered this to be important contextual information that would assist me in my investigation. This information was not shared with the complainants during the investigation, though a draft of this chapter was shared with them at the end of my investigation along with the other parts of the report dealing with issues of fact.
108.On 23 March 2020, Mr Ollard wrote to me. He reported that he had been made aware of the incident involving Christian Bombolo and Hannah Bardell and that the Director of Parliamentary Security, Eric Hepburn, had spoken to Lord Maginnis about it. He also said that both he and Mr Hepburn had had meetings with Hannah Bardell. He provided copies of the notes from those meetings. He also provided me with a copy of the security office report of the incident on 7 January 2020.
109.He also reported that he held information on two other incidents in 2018 of Lord Maginnis using abusive language to staff when asked to show his pass at an entrance to the parliamentary estate. Both cases were reported to Black Rod and Lord Maginnis subsequently wrote a letter of apology to Black Rod.