Stewart Ross Sutherland of Houndwood 25 February 1941 – 29 January 2018 First Published by The Times on 3 February 2018 When the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care of the Elderly, chaired by Sir Stewart Sutherland, issued its report in 1999, the response of his critics was predictable. They dismissed his radical recommendation that all nursing and personal care should be provided free by the government as “hopelessly unrealistic” and described the costs as “prohibitive”. The Labour government, which had set up the commission, quietly shelved it. Reflecting on that setback ten years later, Sir Stewart — by then Lord Sutherland of Houndwood — was phlegmatic, but still convinced that a genuine opportunity had been missed. “My biggest disappointment,” he said, “is that the government, when it rejected our proposals, didn’t come up with an alternative. If it had a better scheme, then we have not seen it. We are still at sixes and sevens.” Today, that judgment still stands. With the population of over-seventies due to reach 7.9 million by 2020, the charity Age Concern has described the state of elderly care in England as “unacceptable in a civilised society”. By contrast, Lord Sutherland took quiet satisfaction from a review he carried out in his native Scotland, which found that a system of free care, introduced there, and dismissed by the same critics as “unaffordable”, had bedded down “surprisingly well”. An intellectual and a theologian, who wrote widely on issues of faith and philosophy, he was also a leading academic who became vice-chancellor of London and Edinburgh universities, and an active member of the House of Lords. Sutherland did not shrink from the most challenging social issues of his day. Among the recommendations of his commission was a reform that, 20 years on, has become central to the present crisis in the NHS — the need to bring health and social care together. He proposed that health and social care budgets should be merged. By including social security benefits in the equation, he argued, it should be possible to rethink and reshape priorities in line with the ageing population. “We have a chance to think this through,” he said at the time. “We are a very wealthy country; we can begin to turn the rudder a little bit into thinking what this country will be like in 10, 15, 20 years’ time. I don’t necessarily mean more public expenditure, but public expenditure that’s targeted to the kind of society we are going to be.” A Scot who made his mark on the international scene, Sutherland was the traditional “lad o’ pairts”, a clever pupil from a humble background who benefited from a sound educational system and achieved his full potential. Stewart Ross Sutherland was brought up in Aberdeenshire, the son of George Sutherland, a drapery salesman, and his wife, Ethel (née Masson), who worked in a department store. He was educated at Woodside Primary School, where he and his classmates all came from ordinary families recovering from the hardships of war. They were taught well by teachers who managed large classes of as many as 48 pupils. He went on to Robert Gordon’s College, then to the University of Aberdeen to read philosophy and to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was awarded an MA in the philosophy of religion. He held teaching posts at Bangor University and at the University of Stirling before being given a chair in the history and philosophy of religion at King’s College London in 1977. It was at Stirling that he began the series of philosophical investigations that would establish his reputation as a theological thinker of versatility, reach and imagination. In works such as Atheism and the Rejection of God (1977), Faith and Ambiguity (1984) and God, Jesus and Belief (1984), he explored the problems of maintaining moral responsibility in a world of competing faiths and values. His Wilde lectures at Oxford in 1984 explored a range of intellectual, moral and existential issues in contemporary philosophical theology, developing his argument that Christian ethical and faith traditions continue to have an enduring value. He addressed the issue of how religion should be taught in schools in a multifaith society, arguing that, while religious faith and understanding cannot be set aside from education in a democracy founded on the struggle for religious freedom, this should not be allowed to distort the equally fundamental need for what he called “a common language in which as citizens we can reflect upon the profound questions addressed by religions”. Sutherland once described his career as “a portfolio existence — a bit of this, a bit of that”, but few academics can have matched the range of his appointments. In 1981 he became vice-principal of King’s College London, taking over as principal in 1985. He also served from 1988 to 1991 as a governor of Birkbeck College. In 1990 he became vice-chancellor of the University of London, presiding over a federation consisting of 19 institutions. Two years later he accepted the appointment as the chief inspector of schools and the head of Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education). During his period of office, he commissioned an inquiry into the declining popularity of science, and was the author of the section of the Dearing report dealing with teacher education and training, which pressed for it to be given greater value in universities. In 1964 he married Sheena Robertson, a clinical virologist who became a director of the Scottish Cancer Foundation. The couple met at the University of Aberdeen and had a son and two daughters: Fiona, who runs a gallery in Kent; Kirsty, who is a structural engineer and a professor; and Duncan, who is a professor of nanotechnology in Denmark. The family moved back to Scotland in 1994 when Sutherland became principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh. Those who argued that his report on free care for the elderly lacked financial rigour ignored the fact that during his time at Edinburgh he transformed its standing. The university had discovered a hole in its finances that could have meant a £12 million deficit within four years. It was also struggling with academic structures and systems that made change difficult to implement. By the time Sutherland left he had set in train the restructuring of the university into three US-style colleges, backed by a £40 million bond from the Prudential group. Its finances were transformed. His reforms were so radical, and Edinburgh at that time so conservative, that colleagues were amazed at what he achieved. According to one of those involved: “He did not demonstrate power very overtly: smooth running and soft (like a Rolls-Royce), but (also like a Rolls-Royce) you were somehow gently aware that the soft running engine was actually very powerful indeed.” His achievements have been recognised all over the world, in doctorates and fellowships, but Sutherland wore his learning lightly. Possessed of a wry sense of humour, he could, however, give as good as he got when under attack. During the controversy over free care for the elderly, one of his critics, Lord Lipsey of Tooting Bec, described him as “a fine theologian and a decent man”, but no economist, and “made for a heaven where money grows on trees”. Sutherland’s riposte was to say of Lipsey, who chaired the British Greyhound Racing Board: “I don’t think David has ever managed anything other than his race card at Catford dog track.” In 2002 he stepped down from the Edinburgh chancellorship. By then he and his family had moved to the village of Houndwood in the Scottish Borders, from where he took his title. Sutherland had been the president of the Saltire Society, which aims to increase public awareness of Scotland’s cultural heritage, and the president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in Scotland, in 2002. He listed among his recreations theatre, jazz, and the collection of medallions made by the 18th-century Scottish craftsman James Tassie. He was diagnosed with cancer two years ago, but carried on lecturing and attending the Lords until relatively recently, when his wife cared for him through the later stages of his illness. Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, who shared his room in the Lords, remembers the pride he took in his heritage, and the enjoyment he derived from walking in the Grampian hills: “He was,” he said, “unashamedly Scottish.” Magnus Linklater Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT FBA FRSE HonFLSW. Born February 25, 1941. Elected FRSE 1995. PRSE 2002-2005. Died January 29, 2018.