Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

I make one final point. Noble Lords have said that this may be the last chance. It is not the last chance, by any means. There is power under the LASPO Act 2012 to change the test. If the action plan does not work out, and if, in later circumstances, a future Government decided that they were prepared to take the risk, they could still do so without any primary legislation, subject to affirmative resolution by both Houses of Parliament. We do not need to press this point now. Let the action plan work.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

In a debate on public bodies, protests and funding, we wanted to use the word “reasonableness”, and the Government still stuck to proportionality—in government circles, on that particular Bill, they knew what proportionality meant. Moreover, I was in the debates on the Human Rights Act; it was very clear that part of the human right is whether the decisions that have been taken are really proportionate. The Act spells this out, so I do not understand why, in this particular case, the Minister is relying on case law, particularly on the Human Rights Act. I do not see why that cannot be applied in this particular instance.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot do better than simply refer to what I have already said: the Government think that there should be a very clear, simple test of public protection, and that the way to get these prisoners out is to work in a way that enables them to meet that test, so that they and the wider community are safe. My respectful submission to this House is that that is a reasonable and responsible approach, because otherwise we run terrible risks in relation to releasing this cohort, who have already been found several times not to be safe to release. That is the Government’s position.

I turn briefly to Amendment 147, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, which relates to other support for IPP prisoners through the use of independent monitors, and in addition to the support I indicated on the last occasion. The Government will look at additional support, as the noble Baroness asked me to do, and consider whether that would be a further element that we can build into the action plan. I respectfully say to the noble Baroness and to other noble Lords who have made this point that, for prisoners who have lost hope, the Government’s actions should be the start of restoring hope. We are in the business of restoring hope for this cohort of prisoners.

Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. When she was talking of her role as a receiver of distinguished foreign visitors, I immediately thought of one of the most unforgettable Members of your Lordships’ House who often did a similar job and told hilarious stories about the encounters that she had. That was, of course, Baroness Trumpington, of whom we all have such affectionate memories.

It has been an extraordinary period since Thursday lunchtime, when that difficult news came through. We all knew from the first moment that we had to expect the worst. I must say that I felt a great privilege in being a Member of your Lordships’ House yesterday. There were some very moving and splendid speeches, as there have been today. I have never, in my nearly 12 years in your Lordships’ House, nor in my 52 years in Parliament, heard better Front-Bench speeches than I heard yesterday in this House. However, the most moving moment for me was when we assembled informally in your Lordships’ Chamber to listen to the first words of our new King, who spoke with a quiet, moving dignity, suffused with deep affection for a wonderful mother.

Not being privileged to be a member of the Privy Council, I had to watch this morning’s Proclamation on television, as did most of us. The King spoke again and he used a few words that I want to dwell on for a moment:

“Even as we grieve, we give thanks.”


That is very important indeed. We are mourning the departure of a Christian monarch who believed in the afterlife. We are mourning the departure of one of the most remarkable women who ever lived, but who died in really wonderful circumstances, in the place that she loved, surrounded by people whom she loved, having just accomplished constitutional duties with panache and good humour, in instituting her last Prime Minister.

We have a lot to be thankful for. Having such a respectable bevvy of Bishops on the Benches, I appeal to them. Of course, what happens in 10 days’ time will be a great state funeral, but can it not also be designated on the service sheet as a service of thanksgiving, since that is what we will be doing? We will be not just mourning but giving thanks for someone who has done her duty better than anyone I can think of.

We have been talking of personal memories. I cannot pretend that I knew Her Majesty, but I had the very great good fortune to meet her on a number of occasions. Two stick in my memory. The first was in 2002. I was the treasurer of the CPA, the senior Opposition position in the CPA. We decided that we would have a conference of Commonwealth parliamentarians. We had an immediate affirmative answer from the Palace that Her Majesty and Prince Philip would be delighted to come, and they came. We met in Lancaster House.

I had two duties. One was to take round Prince Philip while the chairman took round the Queen. Then we all four gathered. I had the job of making a presentation to Her Majesty of a wonderful paper knife, crafted by perhaps our finest female silversmith. The knife had the mace at the end of it. She wielded it and said, “By Jove, that’s got a very good feeling.” Before the end of the day, I had a letter from her office saying that she was already using it and much enjoying it.

We were talking to her about the Commonwealth. As has been mentioned many times—particularly movingly today by the noble Lords, Lord Robertson and Lord Boateng—in a sense she lived for the Commonwealth. From going round with the two of them and talking to Commonwealth parliamentarians, I saw that there was not a country that they had not been to. They knew the intimate history of many of the people who were there and they both manifested a love for this greatest of international organisations.

My other memory is a very personal one. On 20 April 2010, I was at a farewell party at Windsor Castle for the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures. The Queen was there, mingling with us. Of course, the next day she was due to be 84. I said what I thought were some appropriate words and also said, “My grandson is six tomorrow and is very thrilled that he shares your birthday.” “Please give him my warmest wishes”, she said. Edward thought this was an extraordinary leg-pull when I rang him up and told him, but it was just typical of her ability to relate not only to significant Commonwealth parliamentarians but to a little boy whom she certainly never met. She cared about her family, as has been said so often.

How do we best thank her and how do we best encourage our new King? We do it, as was touched on last night in a very interesting and powerful speech by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, by trying to demonstrate the sort of unity for which she always stood. We have a particular responsibility in your Lordships’ House, where party politics is not as acerbic as it is in the other place. She was a person who brought others together. It is clearly the manifest desire of our new King to do the same. We must play our part in doing that.

I end on a note that I never thought I would end on this year, in emphatic agreement with Boris Johnson. He said, in some very remarkable words the other day, that he thought she should go down in history as Elizabeth the Great. I endorse that and I hope that, in due course, that will come to pass. God save the King.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I was three years old when, in a little village in Uganda called Masooli, we all gathered round a very small transistor radio and listened to the broadcast from the abbey of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. From then on in every school in Uganda on Empire Day we sang “God save the Queen”. We continue to do it; some still do it now. I stand here as somebody who is quite surprised that this little boy out in Uganda would today be part of the Accession Council and the confirmation of King Charles III. I have mixed emotions.

I want first to echo the words of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, because on Thursday, as soon as we heard the news that Her Majesty had died, I put on Twitter this message:

“Today Churches Celebrate the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on this day is a great shock & Mary’s Magnificat should be our response: MY SOUL DOTH MAGNIFY THE LORD: & MY SPIRIT HATH REJOICED IN GOD MY SAVIOUR; REGARDED & MAGNIFIED HER”.


I have stood, on a number of occasions, near Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth as she sang the Magnificat. She did not need the words; she knew them. In a real sense, that was her song too. She sang it from the heart because it expressed who she was. Her true greatness was her deep humility in knowing that the Lord in many ways “regarded” her “lowliness” and, by divine providence, made her Queen. For her, being Queen was an act of nobody but God.

Humbleness was, for her, born out of having Jesus Christ at the centre of her living, her thinking and all her goals, her rejoicing and even in moments of sadness. She knew the holy scriptures well and sang many hymns without needing to look at the words. She really imbibed the whole tradition. Therefore, it was also comforting to hear our new King say the same thing about the services that shaped him.

When in her presence, you were the person who mattered when you spoke to her. She never looked around. It was as if you were the only person in the room, and until that conversation ended her eyes were fixed on you and your smile.

Forgive this testimony. I had an audience with her to ask for her permission to step down from my role after an extra year. Her response was, “The decision is yours and yours alone—not me, not anyone else. Give me the date and so it shall be.” I took that to be a command. There was a matter that was causing me great heartache. I told her, and I asked for her prayers. I knelt down and put my hands together. She put hers outside mine. There was this deep moment of silence. I think it lasted about two to three minutes. It was ended by Her Majesty saying, “Amen.” I got up and, friends, whatever burdens I had come with were lifted. It was as if I was with my grandmother, who had a similar effect on me. If you want to know more, you have to wait until my autobiography is published next year. You will get a bit more story because permission has been given to me to write some of those words down.

Her hospitality was amazing. I stayed at Sandringham and at Windsor. I will tell your Lordships a bit about Windsor. At Windsor on her birthday, after dinner she and Prince Philip guided us to the library. They had already arranged with the archivist the section on Uganda. The books were opened and copies were made so that we could take some of this material with us. The thing that most surprised me was to see writing dictated by King Muteesa I requesting Queen Victoria to send missionaries to Uganda, and subsequently a request that Uganda became a protectorate. Those documents are there. I was speechless, really. We ended up in the restored chapel at Windsor. Again, there were silent prayers. I cannot remember how long.

The death of Queen Elizabeth has left all of us with mixed emotions. I want to end with the experience of our eight year-old granddaughter, Abigail. When she saw the news that the Queen had died she cried, uncontrollably and inconsolably. When she calmed down, she said, “I will never see a queen in my lifetime”. She then said, “Long live the King”. Queen Elizabeth rests in glory. Long live King Charles III.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly and for the first time in this debate, provoked into doing so by what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, has just said. It is fundamentally wrong to legislate in a way that obliges you to break international law. It is very simple, but that is it. We do not have islands around our shores where we can gather together vast groups of potential refugees and asylum seekers.

The other day I was reading a review of a book, which has just come out, about the Isle of Man in the Second World War. There was of course great panic about people of German origin—although most of the poor people were of Jewish origin as well—domiciled in this country. They were rounded up and taken there. There are some fairly inspiring stories but also some very depressing stories. We have to tread exceptionally carefully here. We have gone on a lot about global Britain, but if I am to be proud of global Britain, I want to be proud of a country that is upholding the highest international standards.

Although I take on board what my noble friend Lord Horam said a few moments ago—he made a gently forceful speech that deserves consideration—I just cannot for the life of me think that to herd people into encampments in Rwanda and other far distant places is anything other than a repudiation of our standards as a great country. It would be fundamentally wrong for us to go along this line. Treat thy neighbour as thyself. There is a lot of wisdom in the 10 commandments. A bishop should really be saying this rather than me, but I really believe that it is essential that whatever we do is consistent with our record as the great nation that abolished slavery throughout its dominions and before that abolished the slave trade. There were battles in Parliament for both, but my parliamentary hero is William Wilberforce and I do not want to see his reputation traduced.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I have been sitting on my hands because whenever you tell a personal story, it looks as though you are not pleading what the noble Lord talked about—law. We arrived in 1974 and were treated with such great respect, love and care. For about 20 years we travelled on a British travel document. That kind of hospitality was of great help to us all.

The way I read this clause is almost as a revisitation of Guantanamo Bay—a very bad piece of work—or voluntary rendition, whereby people were taken from one country to another to sort out whether they were terrorists or not. This country should not use offshoring. The word “offshore” already does not have a good reputation in terms of money and offshore investment. This is a country that has been the mother of parliaments and the mother of legislation and where the rule of law is what governs all of us. How can we get a third country to take what we call refugees?

I can assure noble Lords that there will be many countries in Africa that will volunteer to do it. The question we have to ask is: how do those seemingly wonderful countries treat their nationals? Do they treat them in the same way that this country does? I would be very doubtful. For the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of this great Parliament and for the sake of the British people who have been very good in welcoming the likes of me, this clause should—please—not become part of the legislation.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am also very impressed by the moderate contribution from my noble friend Lord Horam on the Australian experience. I have a question, therefore. How do the Australians get round the alleged breach of the refugee convention?

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I offer the support of the Green group for all the amendments in this group and express horror at the whole nature of this part of the Bill. It is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate and to agree with everything that she said about the gender aspects of the Bill as it now stands, as also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

I want to address Amendment 111 and make a simple observation: the average length of a prison sentence in England and Wales in 2021 was 18.6 months, compared with 11.4 months in 2000. Is this really something extraordinary? Is the UNHCR right in saying that this change in terminology is not right? I think that it clearly is.

I want to draw out what the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady McIntosh, said, both of them reflecting on different elements of how this law is throwing out 25 years of British legal tradition. I am not going to reopen the discussion on the last group about particular political labels, but I will note that this is happening in a country where only a couple of years ago we saw our most senior judges under attack on the front pages of certain newspapers. That is the context in which this is occurring.

I want to reflect—a number of people have talked about this but I shall boil it down—on what the Government’s proposals are likely to do: produce a large number of people who are denied status but who cannot be sent home because it is clearly impossibly unsafe and dangerous to send them there. That leads to a situation of more chaos and more forced black-market employment, which surely no one could want.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I want to give practical expression to what those who have spoken, including the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, have said, and to the exposition of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown: if a law is going to be passed, it needs to be clear, simple and not confused, as in Clause 31.

I shall tell a story. A friend of mine was going to be best man at our wedding, but Amin’s soldiers were hunting for him, so he left Uganda on the very day that we got married, dressed like a woman, and landed up in Kenya. That was the only way he could get away. He had nothing. Friends in Kenya managed to get him a ticket and he came to Oxford with nothing. There he studied law and did very well as a result, but if the test had been on the grounds of probability, he probably would not have done so. It comes down to the question of “reasonable likelihood”. All he could do was describe how he left Uganda. If you are from Uganda, you know you do not go around dressed like that, but the people who listened to his case at Oxford could associate with it.

I ask this for the reasons that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, has given: why in one clause do we have “reasonable likelihood” and in another “the balance of probabilities”? That confuses the legislation.

I have been able to represent some asylum seekers when they have come here. I think the Joint Committee on Human Rights is right that this is what should be incorporated in our law and we should not try to change it—unless of course we are following the analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that instead of making it clear as we incorporate this into our legislation, we are saying, “Throw it out. We know better and we are going to do it in our own way.” I do not think that that makes for good law. It is not simple, straightforward or clear. In the old days, it was said that any good law must be understood by the woman or man on the Clapham omnibus—if they cannot understand it, your law is not very clear. The judgment of Lord Bingham is clear.

Why abandon our case law as we begin to incorporate this into our law? This time the Minister will have to give us reasons why that is the case, instead of—forgive me—what sounds like a bullish reaction to every reasonable thing that has been said. I plead with the Minister to use simple language and retain “reasonable likelihood”, because that is much easier to deal with when people come here without papers or documents and their lives are in danger.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I could simply repeat what I said at the conclusion of the last group: the UK should not engage in the unilateral reinterpretation of the refugee convention—not that we are rewriting it, but we are reinterpreting it—but I shall go into a little more detail.

The JCHR, supported by Amnesty and Migrant Voice, believes that the standard of proof as to whether an asylum seeker has a well-founded fear should remain as “reasonable likelihood”. Amnesty makes the additional point that, as well as raising the standard, Clause 31 makes the decision more complex and the Home Office is getting it wrong too many times already.

We support Amendments 103 and 104 but we also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that Clause 31 should not stand part of the Bill. Amendment 105, to which I have added my name, attempts to bring the definition of “particular social group” into line with international standards and UK case law. Again, based on the principle that the Bill should not be unilaterally reinterpreting the refugee convention, as I said in the previous group, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that Clause 32 should not stand part of the Bill.

Amendment 111 seeks to prevent the definition of “particularly serious crime” from being reduced to 12 months’ imprisonment. As my noble friend Lady Ludford said, bearing in mind that the Bill attempts to set the maximum penalty for entering the UK without authority at four years’ imprisonment, the two changes could potentially exclude all asylum seekers who do not enter through resettlement schemes. As before, we support the assertion of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that Clause 37 should not stand part of the Bill.

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[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I really do not mean to be flippant. The consequence would be that every country would be interpreting the refugee convention in accordance with its terms. As a country, we are interpreting our legal obligations in the way that we ought to and are allowed to. We are going back—

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

The Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended that this be amended. There must be good reasons for explaining why the Government do not want it amended and I have not heard them.

This is a true story; I can meet the Minister in camera and show him the evidence. A young man aged 17, whom we found in Kenya—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this should just be a short question.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I am giving an example of why Article 31, without the amendment, does not work.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I am almost as new, I think, as the noble and right reverend Lord, but my understanding of procedure is that that is meant to be for questions. If the noble and right reverend Lord will write to me or meet me to discuss that particular case, I will certainly discuss it with him. If the case raises a point of principle, I will deal with it. If it raises a point of principle that I think will be helpful for the Committee to hear, I will write to him and provide a copy of the letter. I hope that is helpful for this evening.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to strongly support this amendment, which was so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Meacher, particularly if it is matched by a strong commitment to restorative justice among all sections of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, particularly prison governors. I have witnessed an unfortunate case in which a governor admitted to me that none of the recommendations of the very good police officer who was chairing the conference could be provided by the prison concerned, to the detriment of the whole process.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I too support this amendment. It asks the Secretary of State to prepare an action plan and to show how it is being implemented or otherwise, so it is not asking that which is beyond common sense.

I take your Lordships back to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In front of him is a police officer who was responsible for setting alight a young man. The young man dies and the mother comes, and all that is left is just ash—the body is gone. Desmond Tutu asks, not the person who committed the crime but the mother: “What do you want to say to him?” The mother says, “I lost my son. In the light of what you have been saying to us about the need to address the maladies that have happened and to reconcile people, I say this. I have a broken heart; I lost my son. I want to take this police officer to the place where my son was burnt alive. When we have gone there and have actually touched the earth, I will adopt him as my son, because I no longer have a son.” Desmond Tutu broke down in tears. They go to the place where this had happened, and the mother takes in that police officer as her own son. That is the effect of restorative justice. It never asks the question: “Who has done this? What punishment do they deserve?” It asks the question: “Now that this rather unhappy fact has happened, what are we going to do about it?”

For nearly 20 years I have been lecturing all over the world on restorative justice. In this country, at an international conference gathered by the Bar Council, we had a great debate and discussion; but unfortunately, although we talk about restorative justice, in the light of our criminal justice system we really do not give a major role to what Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission did. Had it not been for restorative justice, a lot of people would have been revenging for what had happened. They were very angry and wanted to lock people away and throw away the key, but because of that mission and Desmond Tutu believing that, without forgiveness, there can be no peace—and that forgiveness is a consequence of restoration; it does not come out of nowhere—South Africa, where many people committed terrible, awful crimes, continued to live in peace.

I know that we will not be voting on this amendment, but somewhere, we must find words that express what the noble Baroness has put before us, because if there is no restoration of the relationships that have been fractured by a crime, you just think that that is it. After a big victory in a battle, George Washington started befriending the people fighting on the other side. Those on his side said to him, “Why do you want them to be your friends?” He said, “Well, if they don’t become my friends, they will still be protesting. The only way to overcome an enemy is to make them your friend; then, they stop protesting.”

There are so many people in our country for whom crimes have caused untold difficulty—take the Stephen Lawrence murder. It would have been good if some kind of restorative justice had happened. Neville Lawrence says, “Those five young men did a terrible thing to my son, but I have now realised that if I continue to be angry, it is me who is being destroyed.” Unfortunately, he is not being given the opportunity to go through the restorative justice process. I support the amendment.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I may make three quick points in support of this important amendment. First, we all accept that short sentences are extremely expensive to manage and expensive to our society, and we ought to do our best to provide alternatives to them. They are also expensive in other ways because they introduce often naive offenders to much more serious crime. Secondly, short sentences are extremely disruptive to the individual concerned. They often lose whatever jobs they have and a whole range of things that are important in their life. Thirdly, restorative justice is a learning experience. Would that there were other parts of the criminal justice system that I could say with confidence were a learning experience.

Restorative justice is the opportunity for an offender to reflect carefully on what has happened as a result of their behaviour and on why it is important that they learn from that experience and change their way of life. This is an important amendment that I hope the Government will take seriously.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I cannot say that I know many teenagers who, growing up, aspire to be police crime and commissioners. However, I was convinced by the arguments made in Committee and I wanted to just make a couple of additional small points. For me it is not just about unfairness; there is a principle here. If you work with teenagers and one of them has made a mistake and has been fined or has broken the law in some way, you say to them, “Now we want you to rehabilitate and become a fine upstanding citizen”, and, “The world is your oyster and you can do anything.” I cannot imagine anything that is more proof of being fine and upstanding than growing up and then saying, “I want to be a police and crime commissioner.” I do not even know whether I agree with the idea of police and crime commissioners, but that is not my point.

The other thing, on a kind of principle, is that increasingly I would like public servants and people taking on roles such as police and crime commissioners to have some real-life experience—and that might involve youthful indiscretions.

I completely support the amendment. There are principles here that could easily be upheld by the Government simply accepting it; it makes perfect sense. I think even the public would cheer.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, since I have been gratuitously referred to, I ought to say some words. Archbishop Robert Runcie said, “A saint is a person whose life has never been fully examined.” All our lives have never been fully examined, but I confirm that I never committed any crime at the age of 15 or 16, and have not done even now. Even if I committed one, I am already excluded from becoming an archbishop again because I am now 72. Age would discriminate against me and push me out.

What I do not get is why being a police commissioner is the only calling where there is discrimination if something was done at the age of 16. I would have thought that, 40 years on, the person has done their time. Yes, there is a record but it does not have to be the only thing over which you exclude them, because they have come on in age. In wanting to remove this for police commissioners, we are not sending out a message that it does not matter whether you commit a crime at the age of 16. We are saying: why is there this hindrance to this profession? Because one day I may become a saint and my life will never be fully examined, I want to vote for this amendment. I hope that the Minister will just accept it and it will be put into statute without more debates, because this just does not make sense. But I speak like a fool.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, as we said in Committee, we are in principle supportive of this amendment. However, we would want in an ideal world a balancing amendment to ensure the possibility of recall and by-election should a police and crime commissioner be found guilty of misconduct, along the lines of the Recall of MPs Act 2015. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, about the discrimination of early offences. Currently, because police and crime commissioners are democratically elected, they can be replaced only by means of another election, and as things stand there is no mechanism to force such a by-election. It is hoped that a disgraced PCC would resign but this should not be at the sole discussion of the PCC concerned. Therefore, we are reluctant to support the amendment without another along the lines of the one described earlier. My noble friend Lord Paddick says that he thinks it is unfortunate that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, did not take the hint that he gave him in Committee.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, in light of the letter that appeared in the Times yesterday, I confirm that I am the former Archbishop of York, I am black—but I am not the holy Desmond Tutu.

Any community, society, institution or legislature that forgets its memory becomes senile. Fifty-four years ago, in 1967, Dame Cicely Saunders founded St Christopher’s Hospice, the first hospice linking expert pain and symptom control, compassionate care, teaching and clinical research. The model is now established worldwide, resulting in the amazing advances in and increased diffusion of palliative care, in which of course Christian practitioners who value human life were pioneers. Frankly, why is this framework for thinking about the clinical management of death regarded as outdated, although some still think it is both/and? We ought to be following the line of approach that has proved itself so successful not only in dealing with pain but in helping the dying achieve peace, which is pastorally so indispensable. This could, no doubt, be extended with more pain research and funding, so that these hospices are no longer depending just on private individuals but become part of our caring for the dying.

I declare an interest: I spent five days and five nights watching my mother, Ruth, dying from cancer of the throat in Trinity Hospice in Clapham. Those days indeed increased our bond. She died in deep peace and when our children came to pay their last respects, they said, “Grandma is at peace”. It was a similar story when the mother of our two foster children died of breast cancer in St Christopher’s Hospice.

Hard cases always make bad law. The voices of those who warn us of the law of unintended consequences must be heeded, especially the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Campbell. The death of any person puts burdens on loved ones, but it is at the same time a supreme moment for caring, reconciliation and affectionate service. At the very heart of the problem the Bill purports to resolve, there is an ideal perception of the human being as isolated and autonomous, always in control, always on his or her own, beholden to no one. It is an unreal idea which has constantly to be overcome, in the interests of their living to some good purpose. Of course, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, spoke of this very eloquently in his most powerful speech.

The desire to live is always responsive and outward-looking: living for the good goals, living for other people, living for the service of God and the common good. The desire to control one’s death is an attitude premised on the notion that the life of a person succumbing to a fatal illness cannot be a life to be lived. That view should not be recognised by our law, except as a pathology which itself needs addressing.