Victory in Europe Day: Commemoration

Mr Speaker, I ask that you now suspend the sitting so that we may attend at Westminster Abbey to give thanks and to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day—the greatest victory in the history of our great nation.

We will now follow in the footsteps of our predecessors 80 years ago. On 8 May 1945, hon. Members formed a procession out of the House of Lords, where they had secretly relocated because the House of Commons Chamber had been destroyed during the blitz. Today, we shall again follow the Mace, but this time from our own Chamber, through the bomb-scarred Churchill Arch, which stands as a permanent reminder of the fortitude of those who stood firm through the war.