80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Debate between Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch and Lord Boateng

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough in this important debate. She brings not just a deep and abiding faith and a passion for community development, the growth of parish congregations and the pivotal role of young people in communities, in two dioceses, but her own personal experience, having been brought up in a rectory, and of working as a manager in the NHS. I have no doubt that she will make a hugely valuable contribution to this House.

This week and these proceedings are very much about memory and commemoration. It is my privilege to chair the Sir Winston Churchill Archive Trust and the Memorial Gates foundation and Memorial Gates Council. We in the trust are very much about ensuring that Sir Winston Churchill’s personal papers are available and accessible to the nation and the world. Many Members of this House will recall that the Memorial Gates was founded by the late and much-loved Baroness Shreela Flather, who sat for so long on the Benches opposite and who gave so much to our nation’s life. But her enduring gift was the Memorial Gates, which highlight and commemorate the particular contributions of the Commonwealth—and the Asian, African and Caribbean Commonwealth in particular—to the service of this nation. They need to be remembered. But both the archive trust and the Memorial Gates Foundation are not just about remembering of individuals, their service and in many cases, their ultimate sacrifice; they are also about remembering the cause which they served and the reason for that sacrifice.

That cause was most succinctly laid down in the Atlantic Charter, to which reference has already been rightly made. We hold in the archive trust—you can go and look at look at it on the website at any time; it is available generally and globally, and is particularly accessible to schools—the original documentation and the writings of Sir Winston around the charter. The charter represents the causes of self-determination, sovereignty, freedom and justice—the very causes that are at stake in so many places in our world at this time, and particularly on the continent of Europe.

We need to remember that cause. One man who did and who never forgot it was a member of the Royal West African regiment. His name was Joseph Hammond and he has written of his experiences in the 14th Army—our 14th Army of Great Britain in Burma. He served in that army; this weekend, he will be 100 years old, and his life and service will be commemorated in Ghana. I have had the privilege of meeting him—I grew up in the Gold Coast, which is now Ghana—and he has established a foundation, the heart of which is the cause of peace, development and education.

In memorialising, as we have done this week, surely one of the best things we can do is to make sure that, in the review of the curriculum that is currently taking place, the history and sacrifice, and above all the values that we are commemorating, are not lost for generations to come. That is something positive and practical we can do, and I hope that Ministers in responding will indicate that that will be their response to the review.

Joseph Hammond remembered the charter—self-determination, freedom and justice—and he, with other ex-servicemen of the 14th Army, coming back to the Gold Coast, then took part in the struggle for independence, because they took Churchill at his word. They fought for independence and they won, after a demonstration on 28 February 1948. Today in Accra, marking the spot where they demonstrated, there is a marble arch, and emblazoned on that arch are the words “Freedom and Justice”. That is what they fought for, what they won and what we must never forget, and we remember Joseph Hammond and all those others who died and who served.

[Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to take part in this debate today—