DOREEN Lawrence is to be given a seat in the House of Lords, 20 years after the murder of her son Stephen in a racist attack.
She will be made a baroness in a list of peerages expected to be published today. It is understood that she will sit on the Labour benches as a working peer.
Mrs Lawrence, 60, has campaigned tirelessly for justice for her 18-year-old son, who was stabbed to death after being set upon by white youths at a bus stop in south London in 1993.
She founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust to support young people from ethnic minority backgrounds to pursue their ambitions, and has been chosen to sit on Home Office and police panels.
It is understood that she was persuaded to accept a seat in the Lords by Labour's shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan.
The Labour Party declined to confirm or deny the appointment when approached yesterday.
A Labour source said: "Doreen Lawrence is a hero of modern Britain. The strength and courage she has shown in her fight for justice for her son Stephen has had a profound impact on attitudes to racism and policing. Her campaigning has changed, and will continue to change, our country for the better.
"Ed Miliband believes voices like hers should always be heard in Parliament."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article