U.K. Labour Lawmaker Suspended From Party After Arrest

Britain’s governing Labour Party on Saturday said it had suspended Dan Norris, one of its lawmakers in Parliament, after he was arrested by the police.

Mr. Morris “was immediately suspended by the Labour Party upon being informed of his arrest,” the party said in a statement, adding that it “cannot comment further while the police investigation is ongoing.”

The party did not specify why Mr. Norris, 65, had been arrested, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

In Britain, the police typically do not disclose the name of suspects unless they are charged. The BBC said that Mr. Norris was arrested on suspicion of rape, child sex offenses, child abduction and misconduct in a public office.

In a statement that did not give any names, the Avon and Somerset Police said that a man in his 60s was arrested on Friday on suspicion of sexual offenses against a girl, rape, child abduction and misconduct in a public office. The police said he had been released on conditional bail.

“In December 2024, we received a referral from another police force relating to alleged non-recent child sex offenses having been committed against a girl,” the police statement said.

“Most of the offenses are alleged to have occurred in the 2000s, but we’re also investigating an alleged offense of rape from the 2020s,” it added. The police said that the investigation was “ongoing and at an early stage.”

The Labour Party’s move is expected to mean that Mr. Norris will, pending the investigation, be effectively suspended from representing the party in the House of Commons.

Last year Mr. Norris won a seat in Parliament representing North East Somerset and Hanham, near the city of Bristol, defeating a former Conservative cabinet minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Mr. Norris is also the mayor of the West of England, a position he has held since 2021, though he is not running for re-election when that post is contested on May 1.

His political career goes back more than two decades. Mr. Norris was a lawmaker from 1997 to 2010, representing the seat of Wansdyke, in the west of England. He was an assistant whip in the government of Tony Blair from 2001 to 2003, and a junior minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2009 to 2010, under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.