DEATH PENALTY CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFIED

SOMETIMES in politics you are given the opportunity to work on a cause for which you feel a true personal passion and commitment.

That is precisely the situation I have found myself in after being appointed secretary to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Abolition of the Death Penalty.

It is a group unlike many others based in Westminster. To start with, its ultimate aim is something that was achieved in the UK many decades ago - the last execution on these shores took place in 1964.

In addition, it is a group where political differences truly can be put aside. In a period when the two main political parties are poles apart on social values and economic policies, such collaboration is something worth celebrating.

My own view is that the death penalty can never be right. And I don’t propose to offer a host of reasons to justify this view.

We are not talking about taxation levels, welfare support, unemployment or housing policy. We’re talking about whether it is acceptable for a society to kill human beings as a form of punishment.

I don’t see how that can ever be tolerated.

That is why I find it so incredible that some developed nations, including 34 states in the USA, continue to use the death penalty.

So what can a cross-party group do about it? What influence does a group of MPs in the UK have on the policies of overseas states?

Well to start with there are the changes we can make to our own legislation.

The shocking truth is that there are UK nationals all over the world who have spent years on death row awaiting the most awful fate.

Some of the more high profile cases make the news and on those occasions we hear about state interventions.

Personally, I would like to see the state intervening as a matter of course where a UK national faces the death penalty. I would be thrilled if the all-party group could help secure that legislative change.

But there is also the work we can do in assisting the many charities and organisations set-up to campaign against capital punishment and support those facing it.

One such organisation is Reprieve. Thanks to work by this charity, more than 300 people once consigned to the death penalty no longer face that fate.

Reprieve identifies instances where there is evidence of flawed prosecution cases against people on Death Row and leads the legal fight to help them.

I have already met with the organisation and will continue to work with its representatives to see how else the all-party group can offer its support.

But aside from all of that, our other main role is to simply raise awareness.

So established is it in the UK psyche that the death penalty is immoral, it is easy to forget that capital punishment still hangs over other societies like the darkest of clouds.

I am not naive enough to believe for a moment that the death penalty will be globally condemned in my lifetime.

But I am privileged to be in a position to help inch the world towards a more civilised and compassionate future.