Stephen Wall

Biography Wall, who was educated at Douai School and Selwyn College, Cambridge, entered the Diplomatic Service in 1968. His early postings included the United Nations, Addis Ababa and Paris. He subsequently served as Assistant Private Secretary to David Owen, the Foreign Secretary and Lord Carrington, David Owen's successor. He returned to London in 2000 to takes charge of the Cabinet Office's European Secretariat as European adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair. He remained in that post until 2004. He was named as principal adviser to Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster in June 2004, and he served until June 2005.

From 2009 to 2019 Sir Stephen Wall was chairman of Cumberland Lodge, an educational charity initiating fresh debate on the burning questions facing society. From 2005 to 2014, he was a Council Member at UCL and was Council Chair from 2008 to 2014. He was chair of the pro-EU 'Federal Trust' from 2010 to 2020.

From 2009 to 2014 he was co-chair of the Belgo-British Conference.

He was (2014–2021) a Board member (and later chair) of The Kaleidoscope Trust – a charity campaigning for LGBT rights overseas. He has worked as an Official Historian at the Cabinet Office, writing the Official History of Britain's relationship with the rest of the European Union.

Personal life Wall was married with one son. In 2014, Stephen Wall came out publicly as homosexual. He divorced in 2014. In 2019, he married Dr Edward Sumner, who died in 2021. He was Equalities Champion at UCL for LGBT+ issues. He said that reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion led him to abandon Catholicism.