John Sewel, Baron Sewel

Who is John Sewel, Baron Sewel?

John Buttifant Sewel, Baron Sewel CBE, BA, MScEcon, PhD, LL.D is the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords, its deputy speaker. He is also a former Senior Vice Principal of the University of Aberdeen and former parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. He was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in 1997, where he assisted in steering through the legislation that led to the recreation of the Scottish Parliament. His name is given to the Sewel motion, parliamentary device passed by the Scottish Parliament, in which it agrees that the United Kingdom parliament may pass legislation on a devolved issue extending to Scotland, over which the Scottish Parliament has regular legislative authority. He left ministerial office in 1999 upon the new Parliament taking over the majority of the Scottish Office's functions.

Sewel was educated at Durham University before taking his MSc at University College of Wales, Swansea and studying for his PhD at Aberdeen University. He had joined the University of Aberdeen as a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics in 1969.