Anthony Lester, Baron Lester of Herne Hill Anthony Paul Lester, Baron Lester of Herne Hill, QC (born 3 July 1936) is a British barrister and former member of the House of Lords. He is a former member of the Labour Party, Social Democratic Party, and the Liberal Democrats. Early life and education Lester was born into a Jewish family and was educated at the City of London School. He then studied history and law at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Harvard Law School, graduating with Bachelor of Arts and Master of Laws degrees respectively. Legal career Lester was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1963 and took silk in 1975. In 1987, he was appointed to be a recorder and was in office until 1993. As a barrister he works from Blackstone Chambers. He was appointed adjunct professor of the Faculty of Law at University College Cork in 2005. Race relations In the 1960s and 1970s Lester was directly involved with the drafting of race relations legislation in Britain. During these periods, he acted as the chair of the legal subcommittee of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (C.A.R.D.) and was a member of several organisations working for racial equality such as the Society of Labour Lawyers, Fabian Society, Council of the Institute of Race Relations, British Overseas Socialist Fellowship and the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants. In 1968, he co-founded the Runnymede Trust think-tank with Jim Rose. He was chairman of the Runnymede Trust from 1991 to 1993. Special adviser He was a special adviser to Roy Jenkins at the Home Office in the 1970s, and moved with Jenkins from the Labour Party to found the SDP in 1981. On 29 June 2007, Lester was appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a special adviser on constitutional reform to the Secretary of State for Justice. Lester is a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Family Planning Association Lester is a patron of the Family Planning Association, previously called the National Birth Control Committee. He represented the FPA in a contentious case in Northern Ireland where it was widely claimed that the FPA were trying to use strategic litigation to introduce liberalised abortion laws into the country. Peerage Lester's peerage was announced on 13 August 1993. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Lester of Herne Hill, of Herne Hill in the London Borough of Southwark on 13 October 1993. Until a sexual harassment complaint was made in February 2018 Lord Lester sat as a Liberal Democrat. On 12 November 2018, the House of Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct made a recommendation that Lord Lester be suspended from the House of Lords until June 2022 as a result of a complaint of sexual harassment from Jasvinder Sanghera. On 15 November 2018, on a vote (101–78) on the floor of the House of Lords, the recommendation of the Committee was not accepted. Members supporting Lord Lester alleged, and the House duly supported the relevant amendment proposed by Lord Pannick QC, that the Commissioner for Standards had failed to comply with paragraph 21 of the relevant Code of Conduct which required her to act in accordance with the principles of natural justice and fairness. After Lord Pannick’s amendment was passed, so that the matter was remitted to the Committee, the Senior Deputy Speaker of the House (the Chairman of the Committee) expressed his disappointment at the decision of the House and gave his opinion that the Commissioner had "followed the processes as agreed by the House and that have not been questioned before today.". He also expressed his