BREAKING NEWS Body of Lord David Lipsey is recovered from the River Wye after 77-year-old Labour peer got into difficulty while swimming
The 77-year-old drowned in the River Wye in Glasbury, Wales, Dyfed-Powys Police said.
The force had received a report concerning the safety of a man who had last been seen on July 1.
In a statement the force said: 'Dyfed-Powys Police received a report concerning the safety of a man who was last seen swimming in the River Wye, Glasbury.
'Following a multi-agency search on July 1, sadly, we can confirm the body of Lord David Lipsey was recovered.
'His next of kin have been informed and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time. They have asked for their privacy to be respected.'
Lord Lipsey, who previously worked as a journalist and Downing Street adviser under then prime minister Jim Callaghan, enter the Lords in 1999.
He told the House of Lords last October of the deteriorating condition of the river saying it smelt of 'rotten egg' and children were getting sick after swimming in it.
In a speech during the second reading of the Water Special Measures Bill he said: 'Residents such as us complain about children who are sick after swimming, rotten egg odours, opaque green pea-soup blooms and brown slime on the bottom. It is not the Wye that we moved next to 30 years ago.
'This beautiful river is being turned into a sewage dump.'
Lord Lipsey was given a life peerage in 1999 by Tony Blair and was a journalist for papers including the Sunday Times, Guardian and Economist.
He had been a Downing Street adviser under then prime minister Jim Callaghan and coined the phrases 'Winter of Discontent' and 'New Labour'.
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