Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Debate between Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne and Lord Woolley of Woodford

Saturday 10th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

My Lords, one of the downsides of being one of the youngest Peers on these Benches is that you are expected to go last. It is a privilege to pay tribute to Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I would like to make two points, one general and one personal.

When we talk about public duty, we barely do the phrase justice when associated with Her Majesty the Queen. I recently watched that documentary again made about the Queen, telling the story through her lens, and I was struck by one of the phrases that she used when she spoke about public duty. She said that public service is sacrifice. My Lords and Ladies, what service and what sacrifice she has given us. We in both Chambers could take a leaf out of her book when it comes to selfless service; it is not about us and our often inflated egos, but about what we do in public service.

On a personal note, like some other noble Lords here, I would imagine, I had my day at the Palace. Almost three years ago to the day, I was knighted. When you go in, you do not know who is going to knight you, and I was nervous already. When I knew it was the Queen, I was as nervous as nervous could be. Most people out there only see the Queen on TV or on our banknotes, and there she was in front of me, in real life. She sensed my nervousness, leaned forward and made me feel extremely comfortable. She began chatting, and we were even joking at one point. My son in the audience was craning his neck like a giraffe and looking around, saying, “That’s my dad.” When I came out, I came round to him and he came to me enthusiastically and said, “Dad, you made the Queen laugh. What did you say?” I leaned back and said, “Son, it’s a secret.” It was a special day for me and for all of us. May Her late Majesty rest in deserved peace, and God save and good luck to the King.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)]

My Lords, I know that we all share a sense of gratitude that we are given the opportunity, as Members of your Lordships’ House, to pay tribute to Her late Majesty the Queen and to welcome King Charles III. I share that luck, and I want to share also one or two of the messages that I have received from all over the world and ask why so many people should write. The prince of the Yazidis has sent a note, saying: “We all grieve in your loss and we wish you perseverance in the face of this irreparable loss.” We have a message from the deputy head of the council of representatives of Ukraine. In the middle of a ferocious war, he finds the time to say, “We miss your Queen.” In fact, he put it more powerfully than that. He said, “We bow to your Queen.” That is Mykhailo Laba of the Ukrainian house of representatives, in the middle of war.

I think it is because Her late Majesty represented the goodness of our public life. That, I think, is the heart of the matter. I found that she had a tremendous capacity for stilling conflict. Some of your Lordships may recall a time not so long ago when we were in ferocious conflict, not just in this House but in the other place, and we received a message saying to come round to Buckingham Palace. We were split into two different groups, because there were far too many of us with both Houses. But the ferocity between us was so great, even in the parties themselves, that people refused to share black cabs—and when you refuse to share a black cab with a colleague, that really is a serious business. I recall well that we went up the steps in Buckingham Palace very slowly, with people not speaking to each other. When we got to the top, we were ushered into one or two of the big rooms. We were still highly hostile. I simply cannot remember the cause. Maybe it was one of those awful moments when we were fighting over whether there should be a general election. It was something as profound as that.

Quite suddenly, and totally quietly, the Queen, unaccompanied, entered the room, just by the doorway. She was almost invisible. She turned to the first person on her left, a man who was extremely angry, and just asked him how he was. He lost his nerve completely. The anger dissipated, and the black cloud over his head disappeared. As that happened, she turned to the next person and the next, and I promise you that, in about three or four minutes flat, we were all friends again. We waited, and the Queen came round to every person in that room and then went on to the next room and did the same. We all came back here in a completely different frame of mind. She had this extraordinary capacity for being the still, calm voice in the middle of the war, as it were. Perhaps that is why so many millions of people around the globe have expressed utter misery at her loss.

I can find no better way of describing her than a Shakespeare comment in “Henry VIII”. Forgive me, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but at that moment Shakespeare used the word “England” to encompass our sceptred isle:

“She shall be, to the happiness of England,

An aged princess; many days shall see her,

and yet no day without a deed to crown it.”

Is that not Her Majesty the Queen? Every single day for 70 years, and earlier than that, she did one piece of good if not more.