Lord Scriven (LD)

My Lords, it is truly with joy and pleasure that I follow the speech of my noble friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, someone whom I have known for over half a century and whom I am proud to call not just a political colleague but a personal friend. It is not often that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I find ourselves in agreement—in fact, it usually signals that something truly extraordinary has happened in Sheffield. So I say to my noble friend, “You have really raised the bar on who you can bring together in your first speech, so I look forward to you solving the Ukraine crisis in your second”. I met my noble friend back in the early 2000s, when he was standing for what can only be described—I am being generous here—as a no-hope council seat. I was dispatched to give him a bit of morale boosting, which is always a delicate task when you know full well that the poor soul is likely to come a very distant runner-up. Even then, his spark was obvious—his passion, persistence and, most of all, the principles that have stayed with him throughout his remarkable career. As it turned out, our political journeys have continued in tandem. My noble friend was eventually elected as a councillor for Broomhill—the same ward I represented. He later served as a vital member of my cabinet in Sheffield and, if we are claiming for political sides the university technical college of Sheffield, I am pleased to say that that was during our administration. When he was in my cabinet, he was always driven by a fierce commitment to tackling inequality, and was endlessly constructive and an immensely valued colleague. My noble friend’s journey from unloading lorries for £27.50 a week to his youth work—I point out with a sense of irony that we now have within your Lordships’ House our own resident youth worker, who I am sure we can use at our disposal if we require his diversionary tactics and services—to representing Yorkshire in the European Parliament, and now to these red Benches, reminds us of the very best of Britain: a country where opportunity, public service and determination can take someone from the YTS scheme to the House of Lords. If there were ever a voice needed in this Chamber to speak for youth, fairness and equal opportunity with that no-nonsense, straight-talking Sheffield spirit, it is his. I, for one, am really glad that he now sits behind me, or rather beside me—