Anthony Lester

Until a sexual harassment complaint was made in February 2018 Lester sat as a Liberal Democrat.

Lester 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 Gordon Brown as a special adviser on constitutional reform to the Secretary of State for Justice. Lester was a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

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.

Lester was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1963 and took silk in 1975. In 1987, he was appointed as a recorder and was in office until 1993. As a barrister he worked from Blackstone Chambers. He was appointed adjunct professor of the Faculty of Law at University College Cork in 2005.

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.

Anthony Lester was born on July 3, 1936 in Hendon, London, England.