I am sure that I speak for other colleagues when I say that when a debate has been going on for four hours, one feels more and more inadequate about what one is going to say and how one can do true justice to this magnificent tapestry.
When Mr Speaker opened the debate, he said that only a score of Members were alive during the previous reign; I must confess that I am one of them, but my
memories of it are very dim indeed, as I was so young when the Queen came to the throne. She has been, as so many people have said, an extraordinary guiding star to us. Some of the best parts of these tributes have been wonderful literary allusions, as well as personal memories.
I remember talking to her once during my time on the Public Accounts Committee. I was very nervous because we were trying to abolish the royal train—a train so expensive and slow that it could travel only during the night—but when I raised it with her, she immediately defused the whole issue. She was charm itself, and despite our efforts, I think the royal train carried on running for many years after that—[Interruption.] And still does!
I remember that, at a Privy Council meeting, I was quite nervous—although quite proud—to mention to the Queen that my father had been Clerk of the Privy Council decades earlier. I was particularly nervous, because when I had proudly mentioned it as a younger man, the Duke of Edinburgh said that the whole Privy Council was a “bloody waste of time”—indeed, it is quite formulaic. When Nick Clegg was Lord President of the Privy Council, he actually turned over two pages of orders and nobody noticed apart from the Queen, who immediately stopped proceedings. When I mentioned my father, she was so kind. Of course, the then Clerk had no memory of one of his predecessors from four decades before, but she immediately remembered my father and thanked me for his service. What a wonderful, kind and superbly astute person she was.
Before I sit down, may I just mention one thing? I was struck by the wonderful speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), who spoke on behalf of Muslims. I am not an Anglican—we Catholics had a bit of a torrid time under the first Elizabeth, when one of my ancestors was hanged, drawn and quartered merely for being a Catholic priest, and we did not do so well under the second Charles, either—but I think the Queen played an absolute blinder in the way that she carried out her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
We all know that so many top politicians just don’t do God. They are embarrassed to talk about religion and feel that by doing so they put themselves on a pedestal that they will be dragged down from. So many people talk about service, and I think that what epitomised her service was that it came from her deep faith. Unlike all of us, who spent so many years trying to get into this place to serve the public, she never asked for this job, but she was sustained all her life by her deep and abiding faith. When people were sad, in mourning or experiencing difficulties, her Christmas broadcast appealed to and comforted people of all faiths and none. We really should thank her for that, because it is so difficult to do.
In one of those Christmas broadcasts, over 50 years ago, she said:
“Wise men since the beginning of time have studied the skies. Whatever our faith, we can all follow a star—indeed we must follow one if the immensity of the future opening before us is not to dazzle our eyes”.
Dear colleagues, she has been our guiding star for all that time. Remember that her first broadcast was 80 years ago, to children displaced by war. She has been our guiding star. Eternal rest grant unto her; may perpetual light shine upon her.
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