Andrew Zelig Stone, Baron Stone of Blackheath (born 7 September 1942) is a non-affiliated, and former Labour, member of the House of Lords.
He retired as joint managing director of Marks and Spencer plc in 1999.
He is currently a director of several non-government organisations, a retail company and is involved in several charities. He also chaired the charity DIPEx that helps patients gain information on their condition and their options. He was asked to retire from this charity due to behavioural investigations below.
In October 2019, he was suspended from the Labour peers group.
He joined Marks & Spencer as a trainee in 1966 and retired from his position as joint managing director of the company in 1999.
He is a director of N Brown Group plc. He was the non-executive chairman of Deal Group Media plc until 2007, when he resigned from this position. He is an advisory board member of The Next Century Foundation.
He was the chairman of Sindicatum Climate Change Foundation and chairman of The DIPEx Charity, a charitable health organisation. He is a governor of the Weizmann Institute of Science and honorary vice president of The Movement for Reform Judaism.
He is a patron of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, the Gauchers Association, the New Israel Fund, the Jewish Chernobyl Children, the Orphaids charity, The Forgiveness Project (as of 2004) and LEAD Nepal – Development for the future of Nepalese Youth. He is a trustee of Prism the Gift Fund and formerly a trustee of the Olive Tree Educational Trust (now The Olive Tree Scholarship Programme at City University).
He was created a life peer as Baron Stone of Blackheath, of Blackheath in the London Borough of Greenwich on 29 October 1997.
He has voted strongly for the introduction of a smoking ban and for gay rights. He was a working Labour peer and did not usually rebel against his party. However, he has repeatedly voted against the party on House of Lords reform as well as on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill and the Hunting Bill.
He has listed his political interests as conflict resolution, art and science, health and ecology.
Suspension, behavioural training and retirement
Stone was suspended from the Labour peers group in October 2019 for making transphobic and harassing statements, then making racist remarks.
The Lords independent commissioner for standards upheld four complaints against Stone , accusing him of sexism, unwanted touching and transphobia.
In one incident, whilst alone with one woman in a stairwell, he told her she was looking beautiful with her hair worn differently from her usual style. On seeing her reaction to his comments, he grabbed her arm to insist that, although it might be thought sexist to say so, she really did look beautiful. He let go of her when someone else came through the door at the bottom of the stairs
Another complainant said Stone came to thank her for some work she had done, repeatedly stroking her arm. The complainant said this made her feel really uncomfortable, angry, anxious and pinned in, because she could not move her chair away from him.
Stone was also alleged to have joked to a young woman that he hoped a document relating to the upskirting bill “would contain photos”.
Two other complaints came after Lord Stone approached a stall about homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. He was with a guest, and loudly asked “Is this where he signs up for the trans operation, he wants to be trans.”