Lord Doyle, the former director of communications for Sir Keir Starmer, has been suspended from the Labour parliamentary party due to his connections with a convicted sex offender.
The peer has stated he will not accept the Labour whip and has issued an apology for his past association with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray who pleaded guilty to offences involving indecent child images in 2017.
This action follows a report in the Sunday Times alleging that Lord Doyle campaigned for Morton after he was charged with possessing and distributing indecent images of children in December 2016.
“At the time of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted his innocence to all those who knew him, including initially in court,” Lord Doyle stated.
He added: “To have not ceased support prior to a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgement for which I apologize unreservedly.”
“Those of us who took [Morton] at his word were clearly mistaken. I have never sought to dismiss or diminish the seriousness of the offences for which he was rightly convicted. They are clearly abhorrent and I have never questioned his conviction.”
“Following his conviction any contact was extremely limited and I have not seen or spoken to him in years. Twice I was at events organised by other people, which he attended, and once I saw him to check on his welfare after concerns were raised through others.”
Lord Doyle, a veteran Labour communications strategist who served as the party’s head of press between 1998 and 2005 before working for Lord Blunkett and Sir Tony Blair, was granted a peerage by Sir Keir in December. He was formally inducted into the House of Lords last month.
The Sunday Times initially reported on Lord Doyle’s campaigning for Morton in December of the previous year, and last week, the Conservatives called for the publication of details regarding the peer’s vetting process.
A Labour Party spokesperson stated: “All complaints are assessed thoroughly in line with our rules and procedures.”
The party is currently conducting an investigation, and Lord Doyle’s Labour whip in the House of Lords has been suspended pending the outcome.
Sir Keir faced questions about Lord Doyle’s peerage on Monday during a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, where the prime minister addressed MPs to reaffirm confidence in his leadership.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch addressed a letter to Sir Keir last week, urging him to “explain why you appointed another friend of a child sex offender to a prestigious post.”
This follows the PM’s confirmation that he had appointed Lord Mandelson as US ambassador despite being aware of his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The PM issued an apology to Epstein’s victims for believing Mandelson’s “lies” regarding the extent of his relationship with the financier.
Following Lord Doyle’s suspension, Badenoch stated that the PM must “come clean about what he was told” prior to making Doyle a peer, adding: “We won’t let this go.”
When questioned about whether Lord Doyle should remain a member of the House of Lords, Labour Party chair Anna Turley told Sky News: “No, I don’t think he should. That’s my personal view.”
Labour have also suspended the party whip in the Scottish Parliament from MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy.
A Scottish Labour spokesperson stated: “All complaints are assessed thoroughly in line with our rules and procedures.”
Duncan-Glancy resigned from her position as her party’s education spokesperson in December and will leave the Scottish Parliament in May due to her friendship with Morton.
In December, she admitted to a “serious error of personal judgement” after it was revealed that she maintained contact with the former Labour councillor following his 2017 conviction.
The Daily Record has since reported that Duncan-Glancy continued her friendship with Morton after he was jailed for further offences and that he attended her birthday party late last year.
Morton was sentenced to imprisonment in January of the previous year after pleading guilty to possessing indecent photographs of children and violating his sexual offences order. He received two 16-month sentences, which were backdated to May 2024.