Downing St warning to Lords over ‘groping peer’ storm
DOWNING Street last night declared the Lords should no longer be able to ‘mark their own homework’ – after they voted to block the suspension of a peer accused of groping.
Lord Lester faced being kicked out until 2022 after an inquiry found he had offered to make campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera a baroness if she had sex with him.
But he dodged punishment after peers voted 101 to 78 to reject the sanction recommended by the Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman yesterday said she believed there should be ‘no place for harassment, abuse or misconduct in politics’.
Asked if the Lords should be able to ‘mark their own homework in cases like this’, the spokesman added: ‘The House of Lords is currently considering the independent grievance and complaints procedure that has been adopted in the Commons. If that is approved later this year that is a good thing.’ Miss Sanghera yesterday told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Lord Lester had the advantage of lobbying his friends and his peers. They were the ones that could have a say in deciding the vote, and that was wholly unfair.’
Campaigners are angry that peers sent the case back to the Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct for reconsideration. Bex Bailey, an activist raped at a Labour event in 2011 who was discouraged from reporting it, tweeted: ‘I’m contacting the peers who voted against this to express my disappointment...’ Lord Lester, 82, was found to have become ‘obsessively attracted’ to Miss Sanghera, 53, as they worked together in 2007.
The leading human rights barrister persuaded her to stay with him and his wife at their £3million home after she missed her train. But she claimed that in the car there, he repeatedly grabbed her thigh instead of the gearstick. During a subsequent Lords visit, he reportedly her: ‘If you sleep with me, I will make you a baroness within a year.’ Lord Lester denies the claims.
The Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct will meet next week to consider options following the vote to block Lord Lester’s suspension.