Labour peer Lord Pendry faces parliamentary suspension

Veteran Labour peer Lord Pendry should be suspended for a week for behaviour amounting to bullying, a parliamentary standards watchdog has recommended.

The former junior minister, 87, was found to have been "verbally aggressive" and "intimidating" to a security guard who challenged an unescorted guest in Parliament.

The guard alleged the peer had grabbed their radio during a tussle.

Lord Pendry criticised the guard for "flexing their muscles".

The House of Lords will vote on whether to suspend him when it returns from its Easter holidays later this month.

The security guard, identified in the Lords' Conduct Committee report as FF, approached one Lord Pendry's guests on 6 July last year, near the Lords chamber.

The peer said his guest, a university student, was "visibly shaken" after being "frogmarched" by the guard.

Lord Pendry acknowledged he had "forcibly ticked off" FF, and that the guard was "clearly shaken".

He denied touching their radio after demanding their name, describing this as "absolute nonsense".

However, the report said a Parliamentary doorkeeper had witnessed the incident.

The committee's investigation concluded that the peer's behaviour in angrily berating FF "amounted to bullying" and broke the Lords code of conduct.

Barrister Akbar Khan, one of the Lords' standards commissioners, said: "It is never acceptable to approach a member of staff in a threatening manner or to touch them without their consent.

"Lord Pendry's comments about staff 'flexing their muscles' against MPs and peers exhibit an attitude which is out of step with the expectation that all members of the Parliamentary community are entitled to be treated professionally and respectfully in the workplace."

The guard told Mr Khan they had suffered anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of serving in the Army, and the incident "had set them back a lot".

Tom Pendry was MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Greater Manchester for 31 years before he was given a peerage in 2001.