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's shock 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, formerly known as the British Humanist Association, 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 in lieu 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. He 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. In 2021, he had his Czech citizenship restored (alongside his British one) and thus became the first Czech-British member of the House of Lords. 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