Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats were guilty of a “failure” to investigate alleged sexual misconduct by former Lib-Dem chief executive Lord Rennard, an independent report found today.
Treasury minister Danny Alexander and consumer affairs minister Jo Swinson should have launched formal action when women came forward to say they had been propositioned by the peer but instead it was handled informally. Mr Clegg and other senior figures were told about the claims but action was not pursued after Lord Rennard denied them.
Businesswomen Helena Morrissey, a leading campaigner for women in the workplace, was asked by the party to investigate its handling of the affair. She said in her report that the women rightly felt let down.
Ms Morrissey wrote: “The fact that a number of women felt the need to make their complaints on television many years after they had originally raised concerns and as long as a decade since the incidents were purported to have taken place indicates a failure on the part of the party.”
Former Lib-Dem activist Alison Smith, now a lecturer at Oxford, went public with her claims against Lord Rennard in February, saying she feared the peer was making a comeback. He stepped down on health grounds in 2009.
Ms Morrissey made no comment on whether she thought the allegations were true or not.
Party president Tim Gordon accepted the criticism in a statement saying: “Helena has made some clear practical recommendations which as chief executive I will work with the leader and president to implement in full.”
The 59-page report said there was no evidence of a cover-up but it showed “a number of people within the party failing to properly investigate complaints in a timely and professional manner”.
It added: “While this may appear a benign mistake, it has caused problems to fester unresolved, to the detriment of all involved.”
Ms Morrissey accepted that Ms Swinson and Mr Alexander handled the complaints “informally” because they thought the women wanted such an approach. “While their actions were, I believe, in good faith, this approach was ultimately not sufficient,” said the report.
