That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty to offer the heartfelt good wishes and loyal devotion of the House on the occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of Her Accession to the Throne, expressing its deep gratitude for Her Majesty’s lifelong unstinting service, leadership and commitment to the United Kingdom, Dependencies and Territories, Her other Realms, and the Commonwealth.
My Lords, this is a formal occasion for us, as the upper House, to pay tribute to our sovereign. But for many noble Lords, including me, this is also a personal occasion—a chance to pay tribute to an inspirational woman who has dedicated her life to public service. I know that many noble Lords enjoy a personal relationship with Her Majesty the Queen, and I look forward to hearing all contributions to the debate today.
The Queen has been an enduring presence in our national story over the past 70 years. The United Kingdom of today looks markedly different from that of 1952, when she ascended the Throne, and yet Her Majesty has remained a constant presence in our lives, upholding the best of tradition while progressing and moving with the times.
The Queen has given seven decades of dedicated service. Just as she proclaimed she would at the age of 21, she has devoted her life to the United Kingdom, the realms and the Commonwealth. Her ongoing commitment to public service is beyond question, and we are all immensely grateful for it.
We in this House have a special relationship with the sovereign, because the Crown is an integral part of the Parliament to which we all belong. During her reign, the Queen has given Royal Assent to some 3,833 public Bills. The sovereign also has the right to consult, encourage and warn the Government of the day, and the 14 Prime Ministers who have served through her reign have all benefited greatly from the Queen’s enormous experience. Your Lordships’ House is often credited with providing the institutional memory of our country’s governance—the Chamber is indeed filled with years of wisdom—but even the aggregate experience amassed in the Chamber today, substantial though it is, cannot match that which the Queen brings to her role.
Her Majesty is unique in many obvious ways—in being the monarch, our longest ever reigning monarch and the first to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. But, also uniquely, she has met more international leaders than any living person on this planet, from Nelson Mandela to the Dalai Lama and from Charles de Gaulle to Ronald Reagan. The Queen has been both a witness to, and an active participant in, the past 70 years of world history.
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness the Leader of the House in paying tribute to Her Majesty the Queen. It is also a pleasure and privilege to speak from these Benches to offer Her Majesty our congratulations on the occasion of her Platinum Jubilee.
Members of your Lordships’ House are no strangers to long periods of public service. We are all motivated by the desire to serve the people and improve their lives but I am sure your Lordships will agree that Her Majesty is in a league of her own. In duration and dedication, no one can compare. Her sense of duty is well known to us all.
Her Majesty is rightly respected for her almost complete avoidance of party-political controversy during her long reign. This is all the more remarkable, given that she is from a trade unionist background. Her mother and father were honorary bummarees —porters at Smithfield meat market—and members of my union, then the Transport and General Workers’ Union, now of course better known as Unite. The Queen Mother was delighted to be a member; she and George VI were admirers of the union’s former general-secretary Ernest Bevin, who of course went on to serve as a distinguished member of the war Cabinet and as Foreign Secretary. He is one of my personal heroes but I know that he was hugely respected by both King George VI and the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth, but also by Her Majesty the Queen.
As the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said, Her Majesty is of course the head of the Armed Forces. This is a role that she has always taken seriously. We all have memories of Trooping the Colour and her leading Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph. As the noble Baroness also said, it is not just an official role: it is very much personal to Her Majesty, having many family members who have served and having served herself in the Second World War. As well as numerous visits to military establishments and hosting events for service men and women at royal residences, in 2009 Her Majesty introduced the Elizabeth Cross—the first medal named after a reigning monarch since the George Cross in 1940—which gives special recognition to the families of service personnel killed during military operations and as victims of terrorism since 1948.
My Lords, it is a great privilege to speak on behalf of these Benches on the occasion of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The Queen is the only monarch I have known in my lifetime; I was born less than four months before the Coronation. To mark this event, aged four months, I was given a commemorative coronation half-pint beer mug bearing the royal crest. As a strict Methodist teetotaller, my mother was black-affronted by the gift and for many years it sat unused at the back of her kitchen cupboard. As a teetotaller, she had no use for it; as a royalist, she could not throw it out. This demonstrates how difficult it is for the monarchy to please everybody.
The Queen’s reign is remarkable in many respects—first, for its length and, secondly, for the unchanging pattern of life the Queen has followed: Christmas at Sandringham, August in Balmoral, garden parties, Ascot, state visits and diplomatic receptions. On the surface, many things have hardly changed in 70 years. However, thirdly, the non-royal world has changed beyond recognition, not just in material terms but also in attitudes, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said, towards women, homosexuals, ethnic minority communities and other minorities, and, in some respects most relevantly, by an almost complete collapse in the deference shown to institutions and the people who represent them.
As a result, what the nation expects of the monarch has also subtly changed. When the Queen came to the Throne, many millions of people treated the institution of the monarchy reverentially and were more than satisfied if the Queen performed her constitutional duties, from the State Opening of Parliament to the appointment of sheriffs, in a dignified and suitably regal manner. Over time, however, the country has looked to the Queen to speak for it in moments of trauma and difficulty, and to do so in a manner which is studiously politically neutral. It has also required the stripping away of the mystique of royalty. People have demanded far more openness in the way the Royal Family presents itself and there has been far more public scrutiny of every aspect of the lives not only of the Queen herself, but of all other members of the Royal Family.
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Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of the Cross-Benchers, I have no doubt about one thing. It is the first time—well, the first in my time—that the Cross-Benchers have been absolutely united and of the same voice. On the whole, we tend to disagree; we are rather a disparate bunch.
We heard from the Leader about the promise the young Princess Elizabeth made in August 1947. It is a moving declaration to us, her future subjects. I was alive at the time, and I hope I can weary your Lordships by reading it out:
“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
I find that moving. She was 21 years old. How many of us thought we were making promises at the age of 21 which, perhaps memory will teach us, we have forgotten to keep? This was a solemn, unequivocal promise; a living, lifetime promise for her “whole life”, made by a young woman who could not have known that the call to the burdens of duty and the assumption of responsibility, not as a princess but as the Queen—as we now say, the head of the Commonwealth—would come so early or last so long.
During her long reign, as the Lord Speaker touched on, the momentum for change has been irresistible. The speed of change has been explosive. There has never been a reign in which so much has changed more rapidly for so many people in the history of the nation—indeed, as has been touched on by those who spoke ahead of me, the history of mankind—than this reign. During all those years and decades of change, the Queen has been on duty as our Head of State, devoted to our service. I say “on duty” because she could never know, and nobody could ever know, when she might be called on to exercise her responsibilities.
In our celebration—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, touched on this—we should remember not just ourselves, our children, grandchildren and families, but the generations of her subjects who have been overtaken by time and who would have been so enthusiastic in support of these proposals. I am talking about my parents’ generation—most of our parents’ generation, but for some of us perhaps our grandparents’ generation—who endured the casualties, hardships and lamentations of the Second World War and its bleak aftermath with such fortitude and resilience. In 1952, their lovely young Queen was a promise of a brighter future for them. The trumpets no longer sound for that rather remarkable quality of fortitude. It is very self-effacing; people do not highlight their own fortitude, do they? They do not blow their own trumpets.
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The Lord Bishop of Birmingham
My Lords, I am delighted on behalf of the Lords spiritual to offer profound gratitude and hearty and—to echo the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—joyful congratulations to Her Majesty the Queen on her Platinum Jubilee.
I may not have been aware of the events of 6 February 1952, unlike some of your Lordships, although, being born just two months later, I can claim to have been eager to participate in the new Elizabethan age. From these Benches, we reflect particularly on the solemnity of the Coronation, which happened nearly a year later, and the setting of the constitutional roles of the sovereign in the wider realm of faith. That faith has been evident, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, mentioned, in the Queen’s consistent, unstinting and prayerful support not only for the Church of England as Supreme Governor but for the Church of Scotland and people of Christian faith across the United Kingdom and the world. The Queen’s lifelong practice of public worship and private prayer has been remarkable to witness, not just in the much-publicised Royal Maundy Services and other great occasions in cathedrals and abbeys but, week by week, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham—the place already mentioned by the Leader—or Crathie Church on Deeside. Those who have had opportunity to preach at such services are grateful not only for the hospitality that surrounds them but for the much- missed, stimulating theological discussions with the late Prince Philip.
This reign has also seen not just a remarkable contribution by one of the leading women of the world, as the Leader has already said, but, in the past decade of her reign, the inclusion of women in the leadership of the Church of England and, of course, through Royal Assent to the 2015 Act, those women Bishops come into your Lordships’ House.
The connection between our sovereign who practises her faith and the national Church is appreciated, perhaps surprisingly, especially in the interfaith communities of my own city region. Not least at times of local strife or international discord, I have found time and again people gaining reassurance and inspiration from a constitution and a sovereign that take faith and the virtues and values that spring from it seriously. As the Queen said in a speech at Lambeth Palace in 2012
“the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”
She affirmed that
“gently and assuredly, the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely.”
The expression of lived faith is no better seen and heard, as we have already heard today, in the brief and moving Christmas broadcasts, where the virtues of service and compassion, illustrated by the life of Jesus Christ, are rooted in shared, fragile humanity and wisdom accumulated over more than nine decades. It was most vivid, I think, in the Queen’s Christmas message of 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, where she combined Jesus, the Light of the World—and, she was prepared to say, her own inner light—with recognition of the many faith festivals that we enjoy in this country and those Covid volunteers across the Commonwealth. She referred to a story told by Jesus, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, ending by saying that all
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
These are the opening words in the Writ of Summons from Her Majesty the Queen which commands us to assemble here in Westminster—not Stoke-on-Trent— to treat and give our counsel, and are we not fortunate to be here on this day to do so and to respond with one united voice in saying thank you: thank you to our Queen for 70 years of dedicated service and for giving outstanding leadership to our country? She is England’s 40th sovereign since William the Conqueror and the first to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, as my noble friend the Leader of the House pointed out in her splendid address.
At a time, especially this week, when it seems that all our institutions are under attack—be it Parliament, the Church, the Civil Service, the judiciary, government, our police, the City, the Bank of England and the fourth estate—only the monarchy remains solid as a rock in the nation’s esteem, respect and affections. For that, we owe everything to the example and sacrifice shown by her Majesty. Yes, sacrifice.
All of us who have served in government have been greatly honoured to do so. However, I confess to secretly feeling a sense of relief when, after 10 years as a Minister of the Crown, I surrendered my seals of office to Her Majesty and the daily tyranny of the red boxes ended, and I was once again in control of my life and diary, and my family and I were out of the public eye. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, pointed out, for Her Majesty the Queen, her whole life, from the age of 25, has been one of selfless dedication to our country and the Commonwealth. Despite intense global scrutiny, she has done so without putting a foot wrong. She is, of course, very well informed and knowledgeable, and she has opinions, but, even in this age when it seems that everything is leaked, none of us knows what they are. Duty is her guiding star in everything she does—something that might be more closely emulated by some others in our public life.
My Lords, Her Majesty has been a public servant for the whole of my life and for those of most noble Lords in this Chamber. She referred to her late father’s selfless dedication, and she has kept her promise faithfully to follow that dedication. She is a public servant who cannot answer back, but who has set an example, most recently during lockdown, by getting right to the heart of family and the impact of grief, isolation and separation, by praising the health service and by steadying the ship.
One cannot help reflecting on one’s own life, because the Queen has always been there. She was appointed a Counsellor of State when she was 18 years old, and replied to Parliament’s humble Address on behalf of the Throne, in the year I was born. For the coronation, there was a spoon, a mug and a New Testament, and games on the recreation ground in Royal Leamington Spa, which we called the Rec. It did not occur to us that some people might be watching the event on TV. I received two honours from the Queen at Buckingham Palace surrounded by proud family members, every one of them a republican. I then arrived here in 2010, affirming loyalty to Her Majesty and her heirs and successors. How often have we sat watching for the stumble on the phrase, “Her heirs and successors”?
I thought about this: how does someone brought up in a family who were not monarchists pledge loyalty to Her Majesty? Some people might go through the motions. I remembered something that an old friend said to me in the 1970s, when the Queen was having a bad time, and I told him that I thought the UK would never reject the monarchy. He was quite philosophical—he was even further to the left than I was at the time—and he said, “Just think of the alternative”; I did, and I did not like it. So my affirmation in 2010 was sincere.
Harriett Baldwin MP wrote in the Telegraph about the Queen as a role model for women, and she referred to the change in the law in 2013 to enable the first-born child of the monarch to ascend the Throne, whether a boy or a girl. Prince George, should he decide to raise a family and his first-born is a girl, will be succeeded by his daughter and not by any successive male. Harriett Baldwin refers to the House of Lords’ “posh glass ceiling” in her article, and calls male primogeniture in the House of Lords,
My Lords, given our role as a revising Chamber, there are very rare occasions in this House when one can indulge in unfettered praise, and rightly so. Today, however, is one of those rare occasions, as we join together to joyfully recognise Her Majesty’s unrivalled contribution to our national life.
Hearing some of the tributes to Her Majesty today, I am struck not only that the Queen has been on the throne for seven decades—70 years—but that during that long period her reign has been faultless. Her Majesty’s surefootedness defies the imagination. Personally, I find it impossible to think of any comparable achievement.
The wonderful words that Her Majesty said on her 21st birthday, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, quoted, spoke of her devotion to service. Ever since those words, Her Majesty has adhered to that promise she made, steadfastly and, on occasions, with great courage. What the country owes to Her Majesty is incalculable.
Through the many difficulties she has had to face up to throughout her reign, she has never, even for an instant, wavered in her duty or from taking the right course of action. As has already been said, she is an example to all her people, and to the world, of the meaning of “duty”. However hard a decision might be, she always puts her obligation to the country in front of everything else, whatever her personal feelings and whatever the personal cost.
One might think that behaving in such an exemplary manner might have made the Queen remote, but she has never become distant from her people. Moreover, she has retained a wonderful sense of humour, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth has so delightfully demonstrated and as I can humbly attest to.
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During that time she has performed her role as the head of the Commonwealth with great energy, driving forward this remarkable organisation, which spans 54 independent and equal countries and nearly a third of the world’s population. From Australia to Antigua, Canada to Cameroon, the Commonwealth is a unique association, spanning almost every region and religion. Her Majesty is also Head of State for the 14 Commonwealth realms, where her jubilee will be celebrated just as it is here in the United Kingdom.
Another institution that the Queen heads is, of course, our Armed Forces. It is to her that our military personnel swear allegiance, but she also has a strong personal connection as wife, mother and grandmother of individuals who have served. Indeed, the Queen herself joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War, training as a driver and mechanic and becoming the first female member of the Royal Family to join the armed services as a full-time active member.
This is just one early example of her remarkable ability to move with the times, something she has done consistently over the past seven decades. More recently, in 2020, as vast swathes of the country were working via Zoom, I was present, along with the Queen, at the first ever virtual Privy Council meeting in our history. Just this week, we saw the addition of a motorised golf buggy to the royal fleet, used to give Her Majesty a grand tour of the Chelsea Flower Show.
The Queen’s reign would not have been the same without Prince Philip by her side. In Her Majesty’s own words, he was her “strength and stay”. As noble Lords know, they enjoyed many happy occasions with their family at Sandringham, and it is the place Prince Philip chose to spend his time once he stepped back from public life. I can well understand their affection for the estate, as my husband is MP for North West Norfolk and fortunate that Sandringham is in his constituency. Over the last couple of years, we too have spent many happy hours, as visitors, enjoying the grounds and the many events that take place there.
The Queen’s extraordinary range of knowledge on just about any subject has always been impressive, and this is ever evident at state dinners and diplomatic receptions, some of which I have been fortunate to attend. She is naturally inquisitive, interested in everyone and everything, ensuring she gets the best out of any situation. I first had an audience with Her Majesty upon being appointed a Government Whip and Baroness in Waiting. In our first meeting, our conversation spanned international football, the domestic issues of the day and, of course, most importantly, her horses’ prospects at Royal Ascot.
The Queen has always loved horses; she has a real affinity with them. When I was just five years old, a man fired several blank rounds in quick succession at the Queen during the Trooping the Colour parade, startling all the horses around. She was able to keep control of her horse with characteristic calmness and a pat on the neck and, undeterred by the rather serious incident that had taken place, continued with the parade. Her knowledge of horses goes far beyond skilful handling. One of her home-bred mares, Balmoral Leia, won the highland pony title at the Royal Windsor Horse Show just a couple of weeks ago.
The Queen takes people as they are. While always conscious of the dignity of the Crown, she possesses a remarkable lightness of manner. She appears just as comfortable presiding over state dinners as she is rambling around the countryside in well-worn waterproofs. Indeed, the sight of Her Majesty driving herself to church is as familiar to us all as her travelling in the state coach—but at least these are two of the more traditional methods of transportation. Noble Lords will no doubt recall the Queen’s cameo, alongside James Bond, in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games, in which the Queen’s journey from Buckingham Palace culminated, as far as viewers were concerned, in a royal parachute jump. We found out later that she had orchestrated this without anyone in her family knowing, so they must have been even more surprised at the scene than we were.
The Queen certainly has a wry sense of humour. Noble Lords may have heard the story of the lady in Norfolk who, on encountering Her Majesty entering a shop, told her, “You look just like the Queen”, to which she replied, “How reassuring”. That encounter is a reminder of the Queen’s own words in her 1991 Christmas message:
“Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.”
We are celebrating this remarkable jubilee not simply because of the unprecedented duration of the Queen’s reign but because of the deep affection and respect that she commands in the hearts of the people of this country—affection and respect unmatched by any monarch in our time. We remain deeply thankful to Her Majesty for all she does for the nation and look forward to her jubilee celebrations next week.
In a changing world Her Majesty has been a reassuring, constant presence, the likes of which we may never see again. She has in many ways been a bridge from one era to another, connecting different generations through the decades. Britain in 1952 was a vastly different place from the country we live in today: a nation emerging from the ravages of a world war with rationing still in place. The challenges of the Cold War and the nuclear age were still in their infancy. The NHS was only four years old. There was just the one TV channel and only 150,000 homes even had access to a television set—no personal computers, no mobile phones and no internet.
Fast forward 70 years and not only has the technology transformed all our lives, mostly for the better, but our society is a very different place. We are now a much more diverse and vibrant country, being home to people from across the globe. Opportunities for women have been transformed, although there is still a long way to go. In 1952, I could not have married my husband; in fact, I would have been at risk of arrest and prosecution just for being who I am. But as our country has changed, so too has the Queen. Everyone changes over the years but Her Majesty has adapted and modernised the monarchy in ways that mean that even many republicans have huge personal admiration and affection for her.
The Queen is the personal embodiment of the nation and a huge asset to us all. Instantly recognisable across the globe, she has met almost every significant world leader of the past 70 years. More importantly, they have all wanted to meet her. We often talk about soft power in this place and Her Majesty epitomises it. Politicians come and go, and some are more loved than others, but to maintain the Queen’s levels of respect and popularity over seven decades takes a real talent.
Ten years ago on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee my noble friend Lady Royall, the then Leader of the Opposition, spoke about the falling esteem in which politics and politicians are held—sadly, a situation little improved, if not worse, a decade on. She contrasted this with the affection for Her Majesty and said we had much to learn from her. I know it is a recipe that we all wish we knew the ingredients of, but we can take a guess at some of them: not only her sense of duty and devotion to public service but a strong work ethic, a love of country and the Commonwealth, and her sense of humour, as the noble Baroness the Leader of the House mentioned.
As the noble Baroness said, Her Majesty also had the love and support of the Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip was a remarkable individual in his own right: outspoken, sometimes irreverent and at all times totally human, his support has been vital. As consort of the monarch for some 69 years, he not only provided invaluable support for Her Majesty but made a huge impact on the life of our country in his own right. The noble Baroness mentioned the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which has impacted the lives of countless young people here in the UK and in some 144 countries worldwide. Over the years since its founding in 1956, many leaders from the arts, business and politics have undertaken the awards. The promotion of volunteering, physical exercise, the development of personal skills and exploration is of great benefit not only to the participants but to their communities and countries. It is a legacy that will endure. Sadly, I got lost on my orienteering exercise on Chobham Common so I never made it past the bronze stage.
Let this Platinum Jubilee be a celebration of community, selflessness and serving others: a celebration of all that is positive about our public life and institutions, a break from the usual daily diet of cynicism and scepticism, and a truly national celebration of a Head of State like no other.
The Queen has been able to navigate these swirling currents of changing times by basing her life on unchanging principles. Three stand out. The first is an overriding commitment to the service of the nation and to her duty to represent its traditions and values. Secondly, her firm Christian faith has permeated her whole approach to life and underpinned her sense of service to others. Thirdly, there is a sense of obligation towards our former colonies and to the Commonwealth, as its relationship to the UK has evolved very substantially over the decades since her accession.
These three strands are most publicly brought together in the Queen’s annual Christmas Day broadcast, when Her Majesty, reflecting on the past year, draws out lessons which she commends to the nation to follow in the succeeding one. Typically, the concepts of community, generosity, kindness and service to others permeate what she has to say. These are timeless virtues, but ones of which we need constant reminding.
As the Queen reaches this jubilee, it is inevitable that she is gradually reducing the scale of her activities and gradually passing on her responsibilities to Prince Charles and Prince William. In them, the country is fortunate in having future monarchs in whom her sense of duty is equally replicated.
Anyone who has had any personal dealings with the Queen will be remembering them over this jubilee period. I was fortunate to serve as a member of the Royal Household for three years from 2012 as Captain of the Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeoman of the Guard. In that capacity, I met the Queen on a number of occasions. Two stand out today. First, during my term of office, the yeomen had a formal dinner with wives at St James’s Palace. It was the depth of winter. The Queen and Prince Philip, in formal attire, attended a pre-dinner reception and in customary manner spoke to groups of yeomen organised in a horseshoe in one of the grand reception rooms of the palace. My job, in theory, was to guide the Queen around the room. The truth was, she was so accomplished at this sort of thing, that she in effect guided me around the room. She spoke to each group with energy, wit and evident enjoyment. She finished the horseshoe within a minute of the time allocated. Every attendee was made to feel special. It was a bravura performance at a private event the Queen was not required to attend, which she went to out of a sense of duty and at which she played her part to perfection.
The second was in the aftermath of the 2015 general election, when I ceased to be the Captain of the Queen’s Bodyguard. As tradition requires, I had to have an audience with the Queen to hand back my staff of office. As I was waiting to see Her Majesty, I noticed that it said around the rim: “For the use of the Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard, for the time being.” I pointed this out to the Queen and said that my time had now obviously been. She smiled sympathetically, but when my successor the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, followed me into the audience room to receive the staff, the Queen pointed out to him that it was for his use only “for the time being”. It demonstrated a sharp mind and a gentle wit, two extremely endearing qualities. It is memories such as these which certainly endear the Queen to me and similar experiences which endear her to so many people in the country. I have been very fortunate to live under such a monarch and, in the words of the song, “long may she reign”.
However, during all the years since 1952, the royal responsibilities have not lightened and the difficulties have not disappeared; they have remained. When we think about it and try to imagine—and we can only imagine—the specific and special demands which rest on the shoulders of the monarch, we can be sure that fulfilling her youthful promise has not always been easy. There must have been times—I am sorry to say so, but we all do it—“Really, do I have to stand up in the House and speak now?” is one such moment. We all have moments when we think, “If only”, and that has never happened here.
It is with fortitude and resilience that, decade after decade, that lifetime promise of service has been and is still being fulfilled. The speakers before me have highlighted individual moments, and no doubt those after me will do so. I shall not do that, but I do adopt everything that has been said. We share on these Benches the national outpouring of affection, admiration, respect and, dare I say it, joy in the fact that we have Her Majesty as our monarch. These moments are a fulfilment of her promises to us, and they have made her an inestimable blessing on this nation. The humble Address is our unemotional but truly heartfelt way of saying thank you.
“put the lives of others above their own”.
As we have heard, she spoke modestly by not referencing herself—and she has exercised that virtue over 90 years —but by promoting the values, virtues and service of others.
Later this summer, we will witness the intercultural and worldwide life of the Commonwealth in the Games to be held in Birmingham and region. In 1952, let us remember, there were only a handful of nations in this movement that has now increased to some 72 today. Here we can see the Queen’s commitment to unity in diversity, courageous and sometimes difficult conversations, and the higher purposes of our common humanity. We may all trust that she enjoys the races at the Alexander Stadium as much as she does those at Ascot.
The Royal Windsor Horse Show pageant started with the first Elizabeth, if you happened to see it. Our nation and many countries in the world have been blessed beyond measure by the faithful and continuing reign of Elizabeth II. She upholds the virtues of dignity of the constitution, responsibility of duty to others and a trusted relationship with her people, all undergirded by faith. Thanks be to Her Majesty. Thanks be to God.
For hundreds of thousands of people across the globe and here at home, the day they met the Queen is never to be forgotten. This includes Heads of State: think of Her Majesty’s skill in engaging so brilliant with everyone from President Ceauşescu to Donald Trump, and from Mandela to President Reagan. For most people, though, the meeting might be only fleeting—perhaps 45 seconds—but what the Queen said and what the occasion was will be retold many times, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, demonstrated in his excellent speech.
A friend, whose mother was sadly suffering from dementia, told me that producing the photograph of her meeting the Queen would bring her back in conversation, smiling and recalling that red-letter day. As a constituency MP visiting nursing homes—I had a marginal seat, so I visited them very regularly—I was struck on many occasions by how determined the residents were to get to 100 years old in order to receive their telegram from the Queen.
I thought that I might not be alone—and obviously I was not, listening to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham—in welling up when listening to Her Majesty’s broadcasts at 3 pm on Christmas Day and being inspired by her example of a life lived in the Christian faith and her commitment to unity, belief in ourselves as a nation and a common purpose.
Her Majesty can also call people to account, as when the so-called masters of the universe were left speechless following the financial crisis of 2008 when she simply asked:
“Why did no one see this coming?”
This is a question that she may very well ask again in the difficult months that lie ahead.
We get the occasional glimpse of her private life with her love of horses and corgis, which has been mentioned already, and of Balmoral, in Scotland, and Sandringham, in Norfolk, where she can enjoy a more relaxed time. That dry sense of humour and wit, which has been referred to, is often on display, as on the occasion of a Privy Council meeting when someone’s mobile phone went off and the Queen said, “You might want to take that; it might be someone important”.
Today, we began our proceedings by praying for our sovereign’s long life and health, as this House has done on every sitting day since 1952. We can all share in that sentiment, so I say this. Are we not lucky? Long may she reign over us; God save the Queen.
“Parliamentary misogyny baked right into the institution.”
I agree with Harriett Baldwin’s analysis and the fact that the current position helps explain why only 13% of the land in the UK is owned by women. She cites the good example set by the monarchy. However, I have my doubts about the solution, if all that results is that class privilege is baked right into the parliamentary institutions.
I turn now to the Commonwealth, which has been mentioned by many. I admire the fact that the Queen has supported the Commonwealth throughout her life and has attended CHOGM, even when some of our political leaders have been less than keen in attending. I was fortunate to attend CHOGM twice, in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and saw for myself the positive impact the Queen had on those gatherings—bear in mind that the Zimbabwe CHOGM was hosted by the late Robert Mugabe. Her Majesty has had to put up with some right wrong’uns in her reign, both at home and abroad. I was pleased to see the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, on today’s list; he will do a much better job of doing justice to Her Majesty’s commitment to the Commonwealth.
Finally, when the Queen became the longest reigning monarch in 2015, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, who was Leader of the House, said:
“All of us who seek to play a part in public life can have no better example than her.”—[Official Report, 9/9/15; col. 1419.]
I endorse that statement and am pleased to take part in the debate.