My Lords, this has been a very interesting and stimulating debate. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken for their knowledgeable and thoughtful contributions. I particularly thank my noble friend Lady Trumpington for her contribution. I know that the whole House listened, as I did, with rapt attention to everything she had to say. I am sure that the whole House joins me in thanking her for being here today and speaking to us. My own link to Turing is only at one remove and I found it very moving to listen to direct contemporary experience.

Many points were made in today’s debate and there is no need for me to try to recapitulate them. However, I have taken note of them all, including, of course, the comments about a plinth in Trafalgar square. I wish to make a few remarks about the Government’s response, although they are not the ones I was expecting to make. Before I do so, there is one other person to whom I owe a debt of gratitude and that is my noble friend Lord McNally. He has consistently encouraged me, in the face of difficult odds, to press ahead with my request for a pardon for Turing and for a disregard for all those convicted, as Turing was. The noble Lord is in Lithuania today on government business. I am sorry that he could not be with us to respond to the debate and I am sure that we would have all enjoyed hearing him carrying out his ministerial duties. However, there is no loss in him not being with us today, and I want briefly to turn to the Government’s response.

I am encouraged by the response, which is generous and timely, and I am very grateful. I am sure that I speak for most people in the House when I say that. I thank the Minister for his words in the closing part of his speech. This seems to be a situation in which the merits of the argument are slowly permeating government attitudes and thinking. Perhaps they will resolve into a clear and decisive outcome before too long. I very much hope that the Government will continue to think carefully about Turing and others who were similarly convicted, and that the merits of a pardon and disregard will seem to the Government to be increasingly compelling. I hope that when the Bill reaches the Commons, the Government will be, at the very worst, sympathetically neutral to it.

As a noble Lord mentioned, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, pointed out in an article in yesterday’s Times that Turing’s first major contribution to mathematics was a solution to the so-called “halting problem”—in other words, knowing when to stop, which is a problem occasionally seen in your Lordships’ House as well. Therefore, in the spirit of Turing, this is where I now stop, and I urge your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.