Answer the following question: Facts:     - children: four   Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of john sewel , baron sewel .
Answer:
john buttifant sewel , baron sewel , cbe -lrb- born 15 january 1946 -rrb- is a british politician , life peer , and former academic .he was the chairman of committees of the house of lords , its deputy speaker .he is also a former senior vice principal of the university of aberdeen and former parliamentary under-secretary of state .he was made a labour minister in the scottish office department of the blair government as parliamentary under-secretary of state for scotland in 1997 , where he assisted donald dewar in steering through the legislation that led to the creation 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 .sewel left the house of lords in 2015 after being the subject of a drugs scandal .