It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman)—what a lovely and fitting tribute he paid. I too pay tribute on behalf of my constituents to the extraordinary long life, filled with service, of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. When I was Leader of the Commons and Lord President of the Council between 2017 and 2019, I had the privilege of regularly meeting Her Majesty the Queen, and I met Prince Philip on a number of occasions. Is it not wonderful that everybody in this place seems to have their own stories of meeting members of the royal family? How wonderful it is that they have reached out to us all over such a long period.
In particular, I recall a lunch at Windsor Castle where I had the pleasure of sitting next to His Royal Highness. The noble Baroness the Leader of the Lords and I were
chatting with him at length about his role in the restoration of Windsor Castle, following the 1992 fire—a role for which he was awarded the Europa Nostra medal for his commitment to making the past reflect the importance of the future. The noble Baroness and I shared our ambition to see the restoration and renewal of the Houses of Parliament. In the peppery way for which Prince Philip is world famous, he was in absolutely no doubt about the need to, shall we say, get on with it, and he was slightly dubious about whether Members of this House and the other House might ever settle themselves down and find a way forward—so, colleagues, take note, please.
I also had a more personal encounter, which to this day is an extraordinary family memory for me, Ben and our sons, Fred and Harry, when we were invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace. The Queen’s private secretary was kind enough to introduce my family to the Queen and Prince Philip. Fred—my eldest son—to his great delight, had been presented his gold Duke of Edinburgh Award by Prince Philip at his last ceremony before stepping down from public duties. Fred mentioned this with pride, whereupon Prince Philip turned to Harry and said, “What about you, young man?” Harry told him that he, too, had completed all stages of his gold DofE Award, but I am afraid that I was unable to resist throwing in that he had not completed the paperwork and so would not be getting his award any time soon, whereupon Prince Philip looked at Harry fiercely from under his eyebrows and said, “Well, you’d better get on with it, young man.” Harry told me afterwards that of all the many terrible things that I have done to him as his mother, probably the worst of all was telling tales about him in the presence of Prince Philip and Her Majesty the Queen.
It was an incredible honour to hold the office of Lord President of the Council because it provided a bird’s eye view of Her Majesty the Queen’s and Prince Philip’s extraordinary commitment to duty. I would like to finish by paying humble tribute to their extraordinary achievements together, and by sending the Queen the deepest condolences on her very sad loss.