Lord John Sewel has resigned today after a video allegedly showing him taking cocaine with prostitutes was released over the weekend. Sewel said he is resigning to prevent any further damage to the reputation of the House of Lords.
Over the weekend, the Sun on Sunday released a video allegedly showing Sewel, taking cocaine with two prostitutes.
Any allegations of this kind against a Peer would obviously receive significant media attention, but there is even more coverage of this case due to Lord Sewel roles within the House of Lords. Sewel is both the Chairman of Committees (effectively the Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords) and the Chairman of the Privileges and Conduct Committee, the House of Lords committee that oversees the conduct of Peers.
Mounting pressure from leading political figures and former colleagues had made Lord Sewel’s position difficult, and he took the decision this morning to resign from the House of Lords.
An interesting twist to the story is that there seems to be uncertainty as to whether or not Lord Sewel actually broke any House of Lords rules. Sewel’s predecessor in the position of Chairman of Committees, Lord Brabazon of Tara – and one of the voices who called on Sewel to resign – has said that the House of Lords doesn’t have a specific rule against bringing the House into disrepute. He also says that there is a strong prospect that Sewel might escape House of Lords sanctions entirely.
There are new rules, actually brought in by Sewel himself, by which Lords can vote to expel one of their own, but given that Sewel has already resigned these rules would appear to apply to him. It remains to be seen if there is any public interest in investigating Sewel breaking the code of conduct of an institution he has now resigned from.
Over the last few days there has been talk of an investigation by the House of Lords standard commissioner, but any decisions on that would have to wait on the Metropolitan Police, who are currently investigating the allegations brought against Lord Sewel.