David Edward Lea, Baron Lea of Crondall

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 2 November 1937) is a British former

trade unionist A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...

and

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

politician.

Early life

Lea was educated at

Farnham Grammar School Farnham Grammar School is now called Farnham College which is located in Farnham, Surrey, southern England. History The grammar school was created at some time before 1585 (the date of a donation being made by a Richard Searle "to the maintenan ...

and

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

, where he studied economics.

Trade union career

Lea joined the TUC in 1964 as a research officer, became Head of the Economic Department, then Assistant General Secretary from 1978 until 1999, when he joined the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. Whilst at the TUC, he was secretary of the TUC-Labour Party Liaison Committee from 1972 to 1994, a member of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth from 1974 until 1979, the Delors Committee on Economic and Social Concepts in the Community 1977 to 1979, the Kreisky Commission on Unemployment in Europe 1986–89, a member of the Working Party on Economic and Social Concepts in the EEC and a Vice President of the European TUC.

House of Lords

Appointed an

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(OBE) in the

1978 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1978 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginn ...

, Lea was made a Labour

Life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

taking the title Baron Lea of Crondall, of Crondall in the County of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

on 20 July 1999. Lord Lea made headlines in April 2013 when he publicly claimed that fellow peer and former

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

officer

Daphne Park Daphne Margaret Sybil Désirée Park, Baroness Park of Monmouth, Order of St Michael and St George, CMG, Order of the British Empire, OBE, Royal Society of Arts, FRSA (1 September 1921 – 24 March 2010) was a British intelligence officer, dipl ...

admitted to him shortly before her death that the MI6 had had a role in the 1961 abduction and murder of

Congo Congo or The Congo may refer to either of two countries that border the Congo River in central Africa: * Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger country to the southeast, capital Kinshasa, formerly known as Zaire, sometimes referred to a ...

lese leader Patrice Lumumba. On 14 January 2020, the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards published a report detailing a number of complaints regarding Lord Lea's behaviour. The behaviour, described as "stalkerish" by one of the complainants, was deemed to amount to harassment based on age and sex in the eyes of the commissioner. As a result of these findings Lord Lea was suspended from the Labour Peers Group. A further report on the behaviour of Lord Lea was published on 10 August 2020. Lord Lea resigned from the House of Lords on 7 April 2022.

References

External links

* https://www.theyworkforyou.com/peer/lord_lea_of_crondall * http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?id=uk.org.publicwhip/member/100366 * https://web.archive.org/web/20110604192352/http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/ldallfiles/peers/lord_hansard_1443_home.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Lea, David Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Labour Party (UK) life peers Officers of the Order of the British Empire 1937 births Living people People from Tyldesley Life peers created by Elizabeth II