Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Debate between Baroness Verma and Baroness Barker

Friday 9th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, there was a conversation that took place many years ago among a group of neighbours. It happened in my grandma’s house, which was in Coronation Road in a mining village in Scotland. The discussion was about the Queen Mother; I think there had been a controversy of some kind in the newspaper. At one point my grandmother, who was part of the conversation, passed the comment, “Well, I don’t know. I only met her the once”. That phrase has passed into my family.

Lots of people have talked today about how they met the Queen, and I have greatly enjoyed the insights and anecdotes. I am different—I think I am glad I never met the Queen, because of a particular incident. Noble Lords will know that in what we will now have to call the King’s Robing Room—it will take us a little while to get around that—there are two brass figurines of the Queen and Prince Philip. Longer-serving Members of the House might remember when the Queen and Prince Philip came to unveil those artworks. For the first time, our then Black Rod did a very insightful and appropriate thing: he invited very long-standing members of staff, some of whom did jobs that were not particularly glamorous and had never really been up in this part of the building, to be part of the event. So it was that Her Majesty asked Peggy, who, longer-serving Members of the House will remember, was the person who ran the Peers’ Guest Room and had done so for more than 30 years, what she did. At that moment, Peggy had no idea; she could not say anything. This was clearly something that happened to the Queen all the time and she said, “I am sure your colleagues admire your work tremendously”, and walked on. If I had met the Queen, I might have found myself in the same position, so I am glad it never happened.

I am also glad to have the opportunity to register the fact that one of the Queen’s greatest achievements was her recognition of people who work for all sorts of charities. She recognised them in all sorts of different ways, not just bestowing honours or being a patron but inviting people who never imagined it would happen to them to go to a garden party and feel like a million dollars for a day. That was truly amazing. As someone who worked in charities, I have to say that it is something she has passed on to the rest of the family. If you are a charity, involvement with the Royal Family is not the easiest of things, because they have the most encyclopaedic historical knowledge of charities—so if you are going to talk to any member of the Royal Family, but particularly the Queen, about your charity, you need to know your stuff. She was a very exacting patron, tremendously thoughtful and I think the most famous member of the Sandringham WI. She knew charities from bottom to top.

Over the past 20 to 30 years, those of us who come from the LGBT community have really appreciated the way in which the Royal Family and Her Majesty have honoured our charities and leaders of our community. It has not always been easy, but the fact that the Royal Family, led by the Queen, King Charles and the Princes, have done that for us, as a somewhat marginalised group, is really important and means a lot to people who, like me, never met the Queen and may never meet a member of the Royal Family. But the fact that they recognise and honour us is very important, and a signal to all the other minority groups in this country that we are all important as her subjects. That is perhaps a little bit of her magic.

I just want to add one indiscretion. I used to work for Age Concern. There was a period of time when it was extremely cold, and there was a great deal of public debate about pensioners not being able to keep warm in the middle of a very cold winter; there were appeals and so on. One particular donation went to pensioners in a very poor part of London on the basis that they should never know who it came from or on what basis it was made. Some wonderful bed sheets and blankets went to people who really needed them. I do not imagine they knew where it came from but, for those of us who did, it told us that she understood charity to its absolute core.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to all noble Lords’ speeches, particularly those of the Front Benches when they started this afternoon. I had the privilege of meeting Her Majesty the late Queen when I was made a Government Whip and became a Baroness in Waiting. For all of us who meet Her Majesty for the first time, it is one of the most daunting and frightening experiences, especially when you are asked to curtsy. I said to the then Chief Whip, my noble friend Lady Anelay, “I’m not sure my dodgy knee will allow me to get back up if I do that curtsy. May I just do a quick bow?” The Chief Whip said, “I’m sure that will be fine”. As all noble Lords know, I am constantly hurting my ankles and knees. In the Queen I met somebody who knew how to put you at ease straightaway. It was just fantastic to be able not to have to start our conversation about India—she obviously knew that I was of Indian origin—as she so warmly started it herself.

Last night, as we heard the news that Her Majesty was not well and then Chancellor the saddest of sad news, I was getting messages and phone calls from people across the world—from India, Africa and the Middle East—all saying how sad they were at hearing the news that we were all going to have to come to terms with. To me, that really demonstrated how far Her Majesty’s reach went. I could not imagine for one moment the hurt, grief and mourning that her family must be facing today. Not only do they have to mourn, they have duty to perform. My heart went out to them.

I picked up the phone to my mother, one of the biggest royalists ever, and said, “Mum, have you heard?” She said, “Just put the phone down. I need a few minutes to absorb what I’m listening to”. I think that was all of us last night. We were all just trying to absorb what of course we all knew was going to happen but—I do not know why—we all just felt that Her Majesty had this magic power and would always be with us.

Last night I was reminded by many community groups to make sure that I mentioned her visits to Leicester, how they all loved it when she visited and how she made each and every one of those who were involved, whether from the charity sector or from local communities, feel so special. I just hope that, if I can be even a tiny bit in the shadows of the public service that Her Majesty was able to deliver, that would be a great achievement over my lifetime.

We will all mourn her and of course will play our role in your Lordships’ House in making sure that we are the biggest support for King Charles III as we all come together to heal and offer strength to each other and to Her Majesty’s family. One of my community leaders asked me to end by saying “Shanti, shanti, shanti”. In Hindi that means “Peace, peace, peace”. May Her Majesty the Queen rest in peace.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Verma and Baroness Barker

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 5th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, is a stalwart of these debates and she always takes a view that is contrary to mine. I say at the beginning of my speech that I do not question her integrity in any way at all, but I do question the briefing on which she has based her speech tonight—and I question the briefing from this particular college. It has a public position which says that young women should have the option and be

“actively encouraged to take up a face-to-face appointment”.

That is the policy now; there is no policy that says that people cannot and should not be allowed to have a face-to-face appointment if they need it.

Secondly, this amendment would require there to be a face-to-face appointment, whereas the position arrived at following the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and in the Commons is that a teleconsultation can happen and that, at that point, if it becomes evident that there is a need for a face-to-face appointment, it must happen. As we explained when we debated this issue a few weeks ago, the greatest coercion is on women not to have an abortion rather than women being forced to have an abortion. Professionals, who took great care to design the telemedicine system at the start of the pandemic, made sure that they included safeguarding as an integral part of what they did.

The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, is right in one respect and wrong in another. There was one case, within the first month of the scheme being set up, where a woman got her dates wrong. That was discovered and that case was used to change the questions and the training. I have to say that I take exception to her saying that there are dozens of cases, because in the peer-reviewed assessments that have been done in three countries, Scotland, England and Wales, that has not been seen to be the case. If anything, professionals have erred on the side of caution when they think that a woman might be approaching the deadline. I am afraid that in this respect I do not think the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, is correct.

More to the point, throughout the discussions here and in another place, the professionals who have been responsible for not just delivering the services but for making sure that they are within ethical and professional frameworks and are monitored closely took into account all the ways in which they thought that young women and girls might be exploited. They took care to make sure that the services discovered that, and they have. They have found young women who have been trafficked. They have found young women who have been pressurised by partners. They have found young women who were prevented from going out to get contraception and therefore became pregnant.

I do not for one minute question the noble Baroness’s motivation, but I say to noble Lords that if they really want to protect young women and particularly girls, they should reject this amendment and accept the government amendment, which has been informed not just by the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and others but by the majority of the royal colleges that practise in this field.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I want to raise one thing that may be an unintended consequence of telemedicine abortion pills. In communities such as the one that I come from, having a girl is still seen as not a good sign of family life. I hope that when we discuss this, we discuss it in the round. There are communities in this country that may take advantage of the facts that women do not have to have a face-to-face and that women in those communities as often as not cannot communicate. We must ensure that we do not become complicit in them being forced into abortions. It is not about not wanting an abortion to be available if you require it. That is my point and my fear. I see it often in my community. It is not as if it is distant. It happens because those women and girls—some of them get married very early in life—do not have the ability to speak up, simply because of the confines of the communities they live in. I do not want it to be an unintended consequence that we end up being complicit in something that by and large is a choice issue but here may well become normalised within families where women and girls have very little say.