Death of a Member: Lord Judge

Lord Bird Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I had the great privilege of working quite closely with Igor in my role as chairman of the Conservative Peers. My noble friend the Leader of the House and others have said everything about his qualities. I will not repeat them; if he were here, he would tell me off for doing so. But I will make this point: in the course of our lives, we all meet someone whom we will never forget, who made an impact on us. For me, that was Igor Judge. It had something to do with his combination of integrity and kindness but, above all, his respect for Parliament and our constitution, and his ability to try to do everything he could to maintain those little conventions that are our constitution. The other striking thing about him was that he could take a really divisive issue, where daggers were drawn on all sides, and somehow find a compromise that everyone could agree to. Blessed are the peacemakers. We will miss him.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, I talked to Lord Judge only about the fact that I went to school very near the Oratory. We were the rough Catholic school, St Thomas More. We would go up to his school and fight with people from there, just because we were awkward. He asked me, “Why was it Catholic fighting Catholic?”, and I said, “I really don’t know”. He was an absolutely magnificent, kindly and thoughtful person. I once made him giggle when I said, “You would have made a brilliant probation officer”.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I found myself as a fellow pupil barrister with Lord Judge. There were just two of us in chambers in 2 Crown Office Row in October 1963, almost exactly 60 years ago. I have known and admired him ever since. I remind your Lordships—and myself—that he had a dark head of hair in those days, which he preferred me not to talk about in later life. When I returned to this House two years ago, he kindly recalled in the Chamber the jousts we had had together as young barristers in the Bedfordshire Quarter Sessions. I am not sure that they were jousts, because he was not a flamboyant, noisy advocate but a quiet, penetrating one and, when he took Silk, a strong and courageous one. So much can be said about the witty and persuasive Igor, who, in a debate not long ago in this House, solemnly read a letter that he had written to himself. He had made his point and made it very well. Golly, he will be missed.

Ecocide

Lord Bird Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My noble friend is right that ecocide was removed from the drafting process of the Rome statute and that that was significant in gaining agreement on the crimes eventually included in the ICC’s jurisdiction. A norm of customary international law is that no one may be convicted of an offence except on the basis of individual criminal responsibility. This is reflected in the crimes listed under the Rome statute. Any future agreed definition of the crime of ecocide would need to reflect a similar set of norms.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

I think it is time to end the appeasement. It is very interesting that in the past 50 years we have done more damage than it took us 2,000 to do. In the past 50 years, when we had more and more knowledge about the damage we were doing to the environment, we have had this pootling around, this lack of leadership. Great Britain could be the great leader here, as it was in the 1930s, and it could say no to the death of the planet.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think the noble Lord underestimates the leadership role that we are playing this year in tackling international action to bend the curve of biodiversity loss. At the summit in Carbis Bay, the G7 leaders agreed a 2030 nature compact, committing for the first time to the global mission to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. We also have the upcoming COP 26 in November. All the actions we are taking through the Environment Bill and other legislative means will provide a leadership role in trying to get these messages across to the rest of the world.

Grenfell Tower

Lord Bird Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am happy to agree with the comments of the most reverend Primate. We also saw a similar coming together of community after the Finsbury Park mosque incident, so I am very happy to endorse everything he said. With regard to the emergency services, again, I think we have all agreed about the emergency services and the bravery of the fire services—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, spoke very well about that. We saw in their response that they were able to act very quickly and to do everything within their power to save as many people as possible. Of course, we commend all the incredible work that they do.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Is it possible to take into account that there were a lot of people to put the fire out, but where were the people to stop the fire from happening? If you know that particular part of London—Notting Hill and Latimer Road—you will know that over the last 30 or 40 years the council has shifted and ethnically cleansed other parts of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, moving them into an area that has become pretty troubled. I want to know what we are going to do about councils that have very rich parts of their borough but do not know how to deal with the poor parts. This has been going on for a considerable period of time. By the way, I speak as an ex-employee of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Obviously, a lot of work is going on within government to learn the lessons. We are focused on dealing with the immediate aftermath, but as I have also said, we want the inquiry to look at the broader circumstances that led up to the tragic fire, and we will work across government to make sure that we address the issues, whatever they may be, to make sure that this does not happen again.