My Lords, my mother had a friend called Lady Winifred Renshaw, who looked and sounded like the late Queen Mary. I well remember her saying: “Mr Asquith was a man I would never have travelled alone with in a taxi”. I tell this vignette to remind people that it was not Mr Asquith’s possible taxi behaviour which is remembered but what he actually achieved for this country.

I wish to make it clear that I support the noble Lord’s Bill to grant a pardon to Alan Turing. Although in 2009, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, issued an apology for Turing’s treatment, this Government should do more. This is not about legal issues but about recognising the debt that this country owes to Alan Turing. There are many ways in which one could compensate for the time that has gone by without that being done.

Alan Turing followed a distinguished degree with a fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge, and the Smith’s Prize for work in pure mathematics. His life and work were exceptional even before he went to Bletchley. The University of Surrey has already honoured Turing, by creating a road and having a statue named after him. If the university can do it, why can we not?

When I arrived at Bletchley in 1941, there were about 400 people. When I left, there were 6,000, including the Americans. The mansion, known to us as “the other place”, and never gone into, stood bare. None of the white buildings or other Nissen huts existed. Only the Nissen hut known as Hut 4 remained—and still does, although it is now a small bar. One did not wander around the buildings. One went to the room one worked in on shifts and, apart from a visit to the canteen, one did one’s work and was then transported to one’s billet. Thus one really met new or different people only in one’s transport to and from work. Unless asked by a senior member of the section to deliver a message, one remained in the same room year after year. The block I worked in was devoted to German naval codes. Only once was I asked to deliver a paper to Alan Turing, so although I knew that he had invented “Colossus”, which turned the war around in our favour, I cannot claim that I knew him. However, I am certain that but for his work we would have lost the war through starvation.

I commend to your Lordships a small exhibition of Alan Turing’s work, about which you will probably hear a great deal more and which is presently on show at the Science Museum. I will make one small extra point, if I may: in my section, we were all employed by the Foreign Office. Next door, Wrens worked on shifts, like us. At the end of the war, the Wrens all received the service medal commonly known as the EOBGO. We got nothing. After a lot of arguing and annoyance we were graciously issued with a slightly ridiculous badge which simply said: “I also served”.