My Lords, as my noble friend the Leader of the House reminded us at the beginning of this debate, it was the Queen herself—Her Majesty—who said several years ago that the Commonwealth
“in lots of ways is the face of the future.”
While Ministers in successive Governments, along with a lot of commentators and others, may have ignored this prescient message, Prince Philip was certainly never one of those. On the contrary, as we have heard, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, both national and international, has spread like wildfire cross the Commonwealth and given it new vitality, connectivity and cohesion at every level, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson has just, quite rightly, been emphasising.
Both the digital revolution and, now, the pandemic have given these schemes even greater relevance and appeal, and they are spreading out far beyond Commonwealth members. I am told that up to 144 countries are now running Duke of Edinburgh’s Award schemes, and that more than 8 million young people have participated in the idea since it began in the 1950s. It is all still growing fast; it is all very fresh and expanding. Last year there were just short of half a million new entrants, both here in the UK and across the world, with 1.3 million 14 to 24 year-olds completing award programmes.
All this is the true path, like no other, to a better, more stable and prosperous future for many countries and societies. The impact will indeed last for generations, as Gordon Brown eloquently reminded us on the BBC this morning. There have been links too with a similar Irish scheme, as Mary McAleese, the excellent former Irish President, following her meeting with the Duke some years ago on his visit, explained yesterday. It could help a lot on that difficult front too.
It is hard to think of a finer legacy that anyone could bequeath to help heal the world and define our own nation’s role and pathway in entirely new world conditions.
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