Lords Deputy Speaker quits after video shows him ‘snorting cocaine with

A British peer is facing a police investigation after quitting as deputy speaker of the House of Lords over a video allegedly showing him taking cocaine with sex workers.

Lord Speaker Baroness D’Souza has called Sewel’s behavior shocking and unacceptable.

Sewel paid each woman £200 pounds-one he gave cash, one he wrote a check.

As deputy speaker, one of his roles was enforcing standards in the House of Lords.

The Sun on Sunday said Sewel had disgraced himself and parliament and said that Westminster, the seat of parliament, sometimes seemed as if it was “a giant cesspit of moral, financial and sexual corruption”.

Lord Sewel, a former senior vice principal of Aberdeen University, reportedly received £84,525 as chairman of the Lords’ Privileges and Conduct Committee – the body that upholds standards of behavior among peers.

“Today’s revelations about the behaviour of Lord Sewel are both shocking and unacceptable”, she said.

In between snorting lines of white powder, Lord Sewel is heard complaining that he struggles to afford the £1,000 a month rent on the flat.

He was an ally of former prime minister Tony Blair.

Sewel is described as “declining to comment” over the allegations.

In a column for the Huffington Post, he wrote: “Scandals make good headlines”.

“Members of her Lordship’s House who are right thieves, rogues and b*****ds at times. It pays for this”.

Cocaine possession carries a maximum sentence of seven years and if it were to be proved that Lord Sewel supplied anyone else, including the escorts, with the drug he could be charged with drug dealing, carrying a life term.

The Lords authorities have said they will call in Scotland Yard but the most likely outcome is that the peer would be asked to accept a caution, sources suggested.

The paper said the footage was filmed in Sewel’s flat in Dolphin Square, just a short walk from the House of Lords.