Lord to leave parliament under drugs video cloud

He also helped Blair push through historic devolution moves which created the Scottish Parliament.

“I want to apologize for the pain and embarrassment I have caused”, Sewel said in his statement Tuesday.

It comes after he was allegedly filmed snorting cocaine off a prostitute’s breast with a £5 note at his rent-protected flat in Dolphin Square, near the Houses of Parliament.

Equally damaging, he is alleged to have made a sweeping racial slur suggesting Asian women “look sort of innocent but you know they’re whores”. “Disgusting, isn’t it?”

Prime Minister David Cameron led questions over the peer’s future in Parliament, while Labour suspended his party membership.

In the wake of the revelations the disgraced peer resigned as Chairman of Committees, which is responsible for implementing the Lords’ code of conduct.

“For the House of Lords to earn the confidence of the public, all of us must respect the privileges that come with a peerage and recognise that – because we are unelected – it is especially important to meet the standards the public have a right to expect, and to act swiftly when we fail”.

“These serious allegations will be referred to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards and the Metropolitan Police for investigation as a matter of urgency”.

“I have no intention of returning to the house in any way until the current investigations have been completed, when in the light of their outcome I will review my long term position”, Sewel said in a letter to the clerk of the parliaments.

Another source with knowledge of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation committee, who declined to be named, said that although members did not have access to classified information they were given privileged access to high-level military and intelligence staff.

In a statement to parliamentary officials announcing his resignation, he said: “As a subordinate, second chamber, the House of Lords is an effective, vital but undervalued part of our political system. The requirement that members must always act on their personal honour has been reinforced”.

Lords commissioner for standards Paul Kernaghan, a former police chief constable, is also carrying out an initial assessment of the allegations.

The cross-party Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee – which Lord Sewel chaired until the scandal broke – will then decide on a punishment.

“Scandals make good headlines”, he wrote.

Sewel, 69, who is married, was in charge of standards and discipline in the upper chamber.

He goes on to tell his companions that members of the Lords are “thieves, rogues and b*******”, and boasts he spends his £200-a-day House of Lords allowance “on wine”.

The 69-year-old apparently paid one of the women for the night with a cheque for £200, dated July 22.

John Buttifant Sewel had already quit as deputy speaker of the House of Lords after The Sun on Sunday released footage showing him semi-naked and snorting powder through a banknote while partying with two women.

Lord Sewel has faced intense pressure to quit the House of Lords entirely following the allegations, revealed over two days in The Sun on Sunday and The Sun.