Lords approves motion censuring Anthony Lester over sexual harassment

The Lords has finally approved a motion censuring the former Liberal Democrat peer Anthony Lester after a report found he had sexually harassed a woman, after one of his former colleagues prompted shouts of protest by doubting the motives of his accuser.

Lester has always denied the allegations. The human rights barrister resigned from the Lords last week and so will not be subject to the formal sanction from the privileges and conduct committee that would have suspended him until mid-2022.

The committee imposed the punishment after a report concluded Lester had harassed Jasvinder Sanghera, a long-time campaigner against forced marriage, at one point offering to make her a baroness if she slept with him.

Such punishments have to be approved by the Lords and usually pass by unchallenged assent, but during the first attempt to do so, David Pannick, a long-time friend of Lester, forced a vote, which blocked the sanction.

Pannick and other peers reiterated their complaints on Monday that the procedures under which Lester, 82, was found culpable were unfair, but he did not seek a vote and the motion was passed.

The debate again prompted anger, particularly among some female peers, as supporters of Lester sought to cast doubt on Sanghera’s testimony and motives. The main protests came when Tom McNally, a former Lib Dem leader in the Lords, asked why Sanghera did not make a formal complaint when the necessary Lords procedures were put in place three years after the incident.

“Why did the complainant wait for another seven years?” he asked. “She waited another seven years for political reasons. Not for trauma.”

This prompted shouts from other peers of “stop this now” and “you’re embarrassing all of us”.

The Labour peer Lola Young said: “I can’t tell you how sad it is for me to have to follow on from Lord McNally, because in the past I’ve been a great admirer of his work.” His comments were “completely out of order, totally inappropriate, and [it] actually demeans the value of the debate we’ve had this afternoon”, she said.

The former Labour MP John McFall, who chairs the privileges and conduct committee, opened the debate by urging peers to agree the report, “both to deliver justice to the complainant, Jasvinder Sanghera, and to give confidence to other possible complainants and respondents that we have a robust but fair process in place for investigating allegations”.

Since the first debate there had been comments “suggesting a loss of confidence in our ability to hold our members to account”, he said. “We must work to regain that confidence today.”

In his speech Pannick reiterated his worries about the process. “An individual’s reputation has been destroyed by reference to allegations of what is said to have occurred over 11 years ago,” he said.

Helena Kennedy was among a series of female peers to express concern about the tone of the debate. “All the tropes that imply that women are somehow not be to be relied on were presented to this house,” she said.