Alf Dubs, Baron Dubs

Alfred Dubs, Baron Dubs (born 5 December 1932) is a British Labour Party politician and former Member of Parliament. On 27 September 1994, he was appointed as a Labour life peer with the title of Baron Dubs, ''of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth''.

Early life and education

Alfred Dubs was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to a Jewish father, Hubert, whose family were from Northern Bohemia, and a mother, Bedriska (or Frida) , from Austria. Hubert worked in the cotton industry, while Frida was a dietitian.

Dubs lived in Prague as a child. His father left for London when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939. His mother applied for permission to leave the country but this was refused at Gestapo Headquarters.

Dubs travelled on the ''Kindertransport'' in June 1939 at the age of six. He was one of 669 Czech-resident, mainly Jewish, children saved by British stockbroker Nicholas Winton, and others, from the Nazis on the ''Kindertransport'' between March and September 1939. He later said that he clearly remembered leaving Prague station and not touching the food pack given to him by his mother for the next two days.

Hubert had fled to England when the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia and met young Alf at Liverpool Street station. His mother was initially denied a visa but was able to join him and his father in London on 31 August. The family moved to Cookstown in Northern Ireland but within a year Dubs' father died of a heart attack. His mother found work at a British Restaurant in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, at first scrubbing floors.

From 1943 Dubs attended a boarding school run by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in Llanwrtyd Wells. Dubs was later educated at Cheadle Hulme School and the London School of Economics. He worked as a local government officer and for Ogilvy and Mather as an account executive before entering politics.

Career

Before being elected for Battersea South, Dubs stood three times. In 1970 he stood for Cities of London and Westminster and was defeated by the Conservative candidate Christopher Tugendhat. In South Hertfordshire in the February and October 1974 general elections, he was beaten by the incumbent Conservative MP Cecil Parkinson.

Dubs was elected in the 1979 general election as a member of parliament for Battersea South and for the next parliament was re-elected – in 1983 for Battersea (a restored seat). He lost the election of 1987 for the same seat. Dubs stood for Battersea again at the 1992 election, only to see the Conservative majority increase, against the national trend. From 1988 to 1995, he was director of the Refugee Council. On 27 September 1994, he was appointed as a Labour life peer with the title of Baron Dubs, ''of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth''. He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office from May 1997 to December 1999.

While Dubs was in the House of Commons, John O'Farrell worked in his office and was a Labour activist in Battersea. In his book, ''Things Can Only Get Better'', O'Farrell described the events leading up to Dubs' surprise defeat by the Conservative John Bowis at the 1987 general election.

Dubs has served on an area health authority and more recently on a mental health trust. He was chair of the Broadcasting Standards Commission until December 2003 and had previously been deputy chair of the Independent Television Commission. He is a trustee of the Open University Foundation.

In the past, he has been a local councillor, chair of the Fabian Society, chair of Liberty, a trustee of Action Aid, a trustee of the Immigration Advisory Service and of a number of other voluntary organisations.

Dubs is a patron of Humanists UK, a patron of Refugee Support Group based in Berkshire, as well as treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group.

In 2008, Dubs participated in 42 House of Lords debates, well above average for all peers. He has spoken on many varied subjects including the National Probation Service and road safety. Dubs was chair of the Road Safety Foundation.

Dubs lists his main home as a cottage in the Lake District in Cumbria, which enabled him to claim over £26,000 of overnight subsistence expenses in 2007–08, although he has lived in Notting Hill, London, since 1964. In May 2009, he argued in justification that Lords regard the overnight allowance as a payment instead of salary. "We are the only legislators in the world that don't get paid," he said. "The overnight thing is quite generous because it compensates for not having a salary. In practice that's how it works."

Dubs is a vice-president of the Debating Group.Debating Group
Chair of the all party Group on Moldova

Dubs was awarded Humanist of the Year 2016 by the British Humanist Association at an awards ceremony in London and an Honorary Silver Medal of Jan Masaryk at the Czech Republic Ambassador's residence in London in November 2019.

During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, Dubs was among a number of Humanists UK patrons to contribute morale-boosting messages of resilience, hope, and inspiration on National Prison Radio.

Dubs amendment

In 2016, Lord Dubs tabled what became section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, by which UK local authorities admitted unaccompanied minors housed in EU refugee camps who are mainly asylum seekers. It responded to the European migrant crisis. Originally rejected by the House of Commons, the provision was accepted by the government following a second debate and vote in favour by the Lords. In February 2017, the Home Office removed this as a type of permission to enter, in the light of other new provisions targeted at family reunion, after accepting 350 of the 3,000 whom analysts expected it would apply to.

A new amendment was proposed by Lord Dubs in January 2020, to require the UK government to negotiate an agreement with the EU to ensure that unaccompanied children in Europe could continue to come to the UK to join a close relative, who was in the process of seeking refugee status, as part of the law effecting the Withdrawal Agreement. The amendment was supported by the House of Lords, but was rejected by the House of Commons due to the Government opposing it. It would expand the laissez-passer system of Restoring Family Links for settled refugees, in line with latest European Union practice. It would also expand the vulnerable person resettlement and vulnerable children resettlement schemes which began in 2016.

Personal life

Dubs is married to Greta and lives in west London. The couple have two children. He is a keen walker and is very fond of the Lake District.

Dubs was unaware of the role played by Nicholas Winton in his escape to England, until the 1988 edition of BBC One's ''That's Life!'' show, hosted by Esther Rantzen, which reunited Winton with some of the children, after his wife discovered a ''Kindertransport''-related scrapbook in the attic of their home. Dubs later met Winton in person and campaigned for him to be honoured. Winton was finally knighted in 2003, "for services to humanity, in saving Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, 1938–39".

In 2021 Dubs had his Czech citizenship restored, alongside his British one, and thus became the first Czech-British member of the House of Lords.

In June 2025 Dubs was the castaway for BBC Radio 4's ''Desert Island Discs''. His musical choices includued pieces by John Coltrane, Mozart and Smetana.

See also

* Road Safety Foundation
* Campaign for Safe Road Design
* Times Guide to the House of Commons

References

External links

Profile
on Parliament website
*

Profile
on TheyWorkForYou

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dubs, Alfred
1932 births
Living people
Politicians from Prague
English people of Czech-Jewish descent
Jewish British politicians
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Councillors in the City of Westminster
English atheists
English humanists
People educated at Cheadle Hulme School
Alumni of the London School of Economics
Kindertransport refugees
UK MPs 1979–1983
UK MPs 1983–1987
Czechoslovak refugees
Labour Party (UK) life peers
Czechoslovak emigrants to England
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Czech emigrants to England
Chairs of the Fabian Society
Recipients of the Silver Medal of Jan Masaryk
Life peers created by Elizabeth II