Former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey should hand back his recent peerage after a Christmas party appears to have broken lockdown rules.
Mr Bailey was elevated to the Lords in former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
He has since apologized for a party held by his staff at the Conservative Party HQ in London.
The singing, dancing, drinking celebrations have been looked at before by the police.
But a video of the night has prompted a further look.
Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, said Mr Bailey should consider resigning his peerage.
“The peerage issue, it needs to be grasped.
“You can’t simply have Prime Ministers, stuffing the Lords with their friends.
“There needs to be a structure which the British people actually accept, and maybe just three or four that are allowed each year.”
Asked by BBC Radio 4 whether Mr Bailey should consider his position Mr Ellwood said:
“I think that is for him to… absolutely, he needs to consider that, if we’re being frank.
“But more widely, which is what I can speak about, we need Lords reform. You can’t keep putting people in the Lords for life.
“Perhaps there should be a 15-year cap on there.
“There certainly should be limits on how many peerages can be made by any Prime Minister.
“These are the sorts of things that I think I would like to see us, as a party, grasp.”
The video, published by the Sunday Mirror, shows staff dancing to Christmas songs, and features some senior campaign staff including Ben Mallet, who was recently awarded an OBE.
No formal investigations have yet been launched.
However, Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, suggested the video should be looked at again.
“It’s very obvious a video tells a much richer, clearer story than a photo, so the team are looking at that with a view to whether that provides a basis for a further investigation.
“I think we can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo.
“I need to let the team work through that, but I think we can all guess which way it will go.”
