Alan Turing (Statutory Pardon) Bill [HL]

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, it is indeed a wonderful pleasure and delight to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. It is one of the unique benefits of this House that we have the noble Baroness, who worked as part of that team at Bletchley which was, for us, part of our saving in the Second World War.

I support this Bill and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, not only for introducing it but for the detail and content that he went into. We owe a huge debt to Alan Turing, and debts have to be paid. Ours has been too long in the paying and now is the time to do it. It is important that we do it.

The code of practice at Bletchley was utmost secrecy and such were the standards in those days that people actually followed it. It does not happen today but it did in those days and the many people who worked at Bletchley never told anyone in their families, even to their dying day. When Alan Turing was charged in 1952, the public had very little idea of the work he had done at Bletchley. They had very little idea about Bletchley at all; it was only in the 1960s that it started to seep out just what our debt was to the people who worked there. He was given the choice between going to jail and having chemical castration. He chose the latter, which meant treatment for a year. The year after that, he took his own life. He was 42 years of age. One cannot but help wonder, had he lived his full term of life, just what benefits we and the rest of the world would have seen from this man. After working on the Enigma code at Bletchley, he went on to Manchester and the first computers in this country, which matched anything that they had in the States. He has been compared with Crick, Einstein and many others.

I feel very strongly that the apology in 2009 by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, who so rightly called Alan Turing’s treatment appalling, is not enough. We need to take this Private Member’s Bill that the noble Lord has put forward and pass it. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, did in a previous debate, on the basis of what he had from the civil servants, no doubt the Minister will give a whole host of reasons, including legal ones, why it cannot be done. This place is full of legal expertise and I am sure there are ways in which we can meet the requirements of the Bill without causing the huge problems that may well have been pointed out to the Minister. We are certainly not hoping today to hear him say, “We will go back and have a meeting”.

Now is the time to act on this: 37,000 people signed a petition that this be reviewed and that Alan Turing be given a pardon. Manchester and Bletchley have recognised him. As we have heard just now, what he did for this country has been recognised throughout the areas of work that he carried out. Law is important, yes, but doing the right thing is as important. It is the right thing to give this pardon to Alan Turing. There are many ways in which it can be done that I am sure would not cause added difficulties. As we found after many years of campaigning for those people executed in the First World War, when your nose is to the grindstone you can find a way. I believe that the noble Lord has presented us with a way of recognising Alan Turing and that there is unanimity that we should do so. If barriers are in the way, perhaps a way needs to be found around them.

I support the Bill. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government will give it the necessary time. I have little doubt that if it goes down the Corridor, it will get the support in another place that it has had here.