UK Parliament / Open data

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Yes. The one thing I know from my 14 years and counting in this House is that their lordships look at everything very carefully. I hear my hon. Friend, but I am not sure that I do agree, for the reasons that I have just given. As the Minister said, the synergy of this memorial being adjacent to this Palace of Westminster is the point, so if not here, where? This is a good place for it, and that is why I support it.

There is another reason why I support it. I always think that in life you can never quote C. S. Lewis too often, and my favourite quote from C. S. Lewis is:

“You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

Clearly we cannot go back and change what happened, but we can change the ending and make sure that people remember where we have come from.

As this could well be my final contribution in this place, I want to say thank you to the people of Winchester and Chandler’s Ford for giving me four in a row; thank you to my team, now and past; and of course thank you to Susie, my wife, and Emily and William, my children, for allowing me to do this. I will close by saying that I have always tried to hold in my heart in this place something that I was taught by my grandfather and then by my parents: it is nice to be important—and there are many people in this place who are far more important than me—but I think it is far more important to be nice.

7.57 pm

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
750 c987 
Session
2023-24
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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