Tributes: Lord Wallace of Tankerness

Lord Bishop of Manchester Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, with a heavy heart, I rise on behalf of these Benches to pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and to extend our condolences to his wife Rosie and family. His courtesy and genial nature were at the core of his approach to everything in a record that spanned many decades and had many facets.

We were the third legislative chamber to benefit from his wisdom and gentle approach. As has been noted, he arrived off the back of great success in the Commons and at the Scottish Parliament. He also proved a most canny coalition government partner in Scotland. He became Scotland’s first Deputy First Minister in 1999, having negotiated various Liberal Democrat priorities into that first Scottish Government’s programme. In the Holyrood election of 2003, Liberal Democrat polling numbers actually rose—which has not always been their experience following a period of coalition.

Jim remained as Deputy First Minister and was again able to negotiate his priorities into the coalition agreement of that second Government. After stepping back from front-line Scottish Government and standing down as an MSP, he came here. Here I pause, as I reflect on Jim as a man of faith.

The Church of Scotland has had a Moderator since 1562. John Knox was the first, although I am not sure Moderator was the right word for him. Moderators generally serve for a year. In 464 years, there have been only three Moderators who were not ministers of the Kirk, one of whom served for only a month.

As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said, Jim was our Moderator in 2021. A photograph at the opening of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that year shows four obviously very happy people at the front door of Assembly Hall in Edinburgh. They were the Queen’s representative that year, who was Prince William, and Jim, Rosie and Nicola Sturgeon. To be able to bring warm and genuine smiles to those faces simultaneously was surely Jim’s magic and some improvement on John Knox’s approach. Needless to say, his year was a great success.

Jim had become Moderator because of his capacity as an elder of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. This brings me to Orkney. Not far from Kirkwall is Tankerness. As said, Jim represented Orkney for 18 years in the Commons, for eight years in the Scottish Parliament and, frankly, for another 18 years here in our Parliament. In Orkney he was immensely popular and passionate.

Here I will take a loop, in that, about three years ago, I went to buy a set of bagpipes in Glasgow. In the bagpipe shop, I met someone who had been born in Orkney and is a very well-known piper in Scotland. Indeed, I had gone to that bagpipe shop because he was an Atholl Highlander, so I could get a discount. He immediately asked, “Do you know Jim Wallace?” so I said, “Yes, absolutely”, and he told me just how popular Jim was in Orkney. He was immensely popular, he was passionate and he was a genuine Orcadian.

I close with his words, said in December in St Magnus Cathedral at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Orkney Islands Council:

“So what do I conclude from my experiences of representing Orkney and working with councillors and successive governments? In a nutshell it is that people matter”.


That is good guidance for us all.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, from these Benches, I associate my comments and condolences with those who have previously spoken. Lord Wallace was kind, welcoming and generous to new Bishops joining this House. Both he and his wife Rosie are extraordinary people. He in particular made a significant impact on shaping the very culture and society in Scotland we see today across the whole trinity—if I may use a word dear to him—of law, politics and church. His two main belief systems were indeed the Church and politics. They supported each other, and although, as we have heard, he never served as a minister in the religious sense, he was ordained: he was an elder, and many across Orkney and beyond have reported how pertinent and encouraging his sermons and hominies were.

Lord Wallace took his spiritual duties especially seriously, never compromising his faith to his other priorities, but notably fulfilling the Sunday elder’s duty at St Magnus Cathedral even during parliamentary election campaigns. I am not sure what his party machine thought of that, but as has been mentioned already, he once remarked that he found the Church of Scotland General Assembly more awe-inspiring to address than the House of Commons. I trust he is now debating in an even more inspiring chamber than any earthly one. While I am unconvinced that any of us on these Benches would be of quite the same view when comparing Parliament to the Church of England General Synod, it is perhaps that generosity which underlines why one political reporter notably described Jim as Scotland’s favourite uncle.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to follow these eloquent tributes on all sides to my friend, Lord Jim Wallace, and to extend my sympathy to Rosie, Helen, Clare and the family following his tragic death last week. I am also very grateful to have spent four years of my life with him as my Deputy First Minister and for all that we were able to do together.

The then Jim Wallace co-led the Scottish Constitutional Convention with my noble friend Lord Robertson. I am sure he would agree that without the input, determination, pragmatism and principle of Lord Wallace, the Scottish Constitutional Convention would not have produced the scheme that became the Scottish Parliament and united Scotland behind the biggest constitutional change this country had seen since universal suffrage. He co-led the yes campaign in a referendum to secure that Parliament, and, in 1999, following the first elections to the Parliament, became its first Deputy First Minister.

In many ways, he co-led the cabinet that so many of us who are now here served in. He was partnered during that time to two shadow Secretaries of State for Scotland and a Secretary of State for Scotland. He was deputy to three First Ministers, a Minister for Justice and a Minister for Enterprise. He was acting First Minister on two occasions, and he was dependable, trustworthy and very, very good in the Chamber.

He passed the first legislation—I often claim to have passed the first legislation as Finance Minister in the Parliament back in 1999, and mine was the first planned legislation, but he was actually first, if we tell the truth. Following the walking free from Carstairs of a very dangerous man called Noel Ruddle in August 1999, a month into his job as Justice Minister, Jim Wallace had to prepare emergency legislation to close a loophole linked to the ECHR and deliver the Mental Health (Public Safety and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 1999. He did so with a calmness and a clarity that we all saw and recognised in this Chamber over recent years.

But that was only the start, because no other Minister carried as much change improving lives in Scotland in that first four-year Parliament. In his role as Justice Minister, he revelled in the opportunity to use the powers of the new Parliament to modernise Scottish law in a way that had been impossible for the absence of time here at Westminster in the decades previously.

He delivered more Bills than any other Minister in that Cabinet by a long way—from family law to court reform, judicial reform, land reform, freedom of information, adults with incapacity, investigatory powers, police and fire service reform, sexual offences and marriage reform. As Deputy First Minister, he was not afraid to lead and was willing to do things together, whether that was setting targets for renewables ahead of the rest of the United Kingdom or banning smoking in public places, as we did towards the end of his time as Deputy First Minister.

He had a great sense of duty, but he was also great fun. His colleagues tell a great story about him. There was a charity event at his local school in Orkney. Someone challenged him to have his legs waxed as a contribution to their fundraising. He agreed and, despite his screams, completed the task. The school received a big donation. The school pupil who had conducted the ceremony and tipped the wax across his legs was Neil Gray, who many years later became Health Secretary for Scotland. He has certainly had a few close shaves in recent years.