John Buttifant Sewel, Baron Sewel OBE (born 15 January, 1946) is a Labour Party member of the House of Lords. He was made a Life Peer as Baron Sewel, of Gilcomstoun in the District of the City of Aberdeen in 1996. 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. He is an academic at the University of Aberdeen.
