Rejected petition Code of Conduct for Members should cover comments made on social media.

Code of Conduct for Members of the House of Lords does not currently extend to comments made on social media. Powers should be granted to the Commissioner for Standards to censure Members using social media platforms to display racist behaviour.

More details

On the 9th November 2020, Lord Kilclooney made overtly racist comments in his tweet about the US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Complaints made to the Commissioner for Standards were not investigated because the comments 'do not include a parliamentary dimension' and are therefore outside of the Commissioner's power. The petitioners want the Code of Conduct extended to prevent Members being able to use social media platforms for racist behaviour, bringing national shame and embarrassment.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.

We can only accept petitions about matters that the UK Government or the House of Commons are responsible for. We can't accept petitions calling on the House of Lords to take action.

You can find out more about the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, including their contact details here: https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/standards-and-financial-interests/house-of-lords-commissioner-for-standards-/house-of-lords-commissioner-for-standards-/. You may wish to contact them encouraging them to make the change you are asking for.

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 12 November 2020
Get petition data (json format)

About petition data

The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.