Queen’s Speech

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I second my noble friend’s Motion for an humble Address. I understand that this honour—and it is indeed an honour—is often reserved for a younger and up-and-coming Peer.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Dobbs]

Yes, I am a little bewildered too. I endorse the fine words of my noble friend thanking Her Majesty for the great honour she did us here today, despite the attempts of protestors to close down Parliament. I had thought that that was Boris’s idea. I also thank our doorkeepers, the police, our security staff, our caterers, our cleaners and everyone who under Black Rod’s guidance has worked so hard to make this occasion possible. Their job is not easy. It sometimes carries significant risks. They should be proud of what they have achieved today.

I also want to thank my noble friend Lady Anelay for her fine words. What a pleasure it is to follow her. However, I have a confession to make: that has not always been the case. She was my first Chief Whip and, if I may say so, magnificent. She dominated the seas like a great battle cruiser, loading three or four Back-Benchers into the breech and aiming us at the enemy—I am sorry: the Opposition. One of my first debates in this House was on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. Noble Lords may remember it. Our Liberal Democrat colleagues in coalition demanded a referendum—a binding referendum, no less, but life moves on. I was young and naive. I listened to an amendment being put by my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, and I was impressed by his arguments. I went out of the Chamber to tell my Whip that I was having difficulties, and she, very sensibly, advised me to go and have a cup of tea. But I was confused, and at this point I must have lost my presence of mind because I spurned the tea, returned to the Chamber, listened to more of the debate and voted for the amendment and against my Government. That was perhaps nothing more than a youthful indiscretion, except that the Government lost that crucial Division—by one vote. I scarcely need to tell noble Lords the direction in which the guns of my noble friend were then pointed, so it is a special delight to be able to follow her today.

I am much looking forward to the response by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. Some say she is a remarkable Leader of the Opposition, and I wholeheartedly agree. She also once died in my arms. It was during one of the pre-Christmas theatrical jollies staged every year by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. They are so much fun. I played the romantic lead, and the noble Baroness played the impressionable maiden. I fear we were both tragically miscast. I persuaded her of my honest intentions, and with her dying breath she fell into my arms. Isn’t fiction wonderful? However, I fear political fiction may have run its course. How can it possibly keep up?

In order to be entirely cross-party, I should mention that while the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, died in my arms, there was a time when I almost died in the arms of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, who I think is lingering somewhere if he is not in his place. He and I have been colleagues and friends for many years. We joined this House together. Some years ago, we were flying back in a private plane from Germany. It had been a successful business trip, and he opened a bottle of champagne—at 10,000 feet in an unpressurised cabin. The effect was truly dramatic, but I do not blame him for that near-death experience; I simply put it down as another lesson in the unintended consequences of his party’s policies.

This day has been wonderful. This gingerbread palace of ours was filled with colour and excitement this morning. I am struggling to imagine quite such exhilarating times in the QEII conference centre. We were treated to a gracious Speech that covered such a breadth of ground that some idle cynics might suspect there is an election around the corner. However, after Brexit, we will have many things to catch up on, whoever is in government. I dream of the days when we are beyond Brexit.

There has always been a bit of Hogarth about our politics. We fight for our beliefs with passion, and no one can doubt on which side of the Brexit lawn I have parked my lawnmower. However, if we are to bind the wounds and eventually to come to some form of reconciliation, we must learn once again the art of listening and try to understand the passions of those who oppose us. We cannot go on as we are, ripping up the roots of our democracy: tolerance, self-restraint and that sense of responsibility to others, without which our individual rights are meaningless.

In recent days we have seen a so-called performer on stage waving the severed head of the Prime Minister while shouting obscenities. We have heard remainers describing Brexiteers as Nazis, and leavers talking of stuffing the Krauts. No, no, no, my Lords. I hope that it is not controversial to suggest that we have, on all sides perhaps, gone too far. We used to have a voice that rang around the world. When President Xi of China came to this Parliament a few years ago, I presented him with one of my books, House of Cards. It is quite a hit in China, I am told—they think it is a documentary. I wrote a dedication for him and this is what it said:

“Where we agree, let us rejoice. Where we disagree, let us discuss. And where we cannot agree, let us do so as friends”.


Perhaps that is naive but I hope not. Today, who would look at our system and our recent conduct and hold it up as an example to follow? Report after report from this House has emphasised the importance of deploying our soft power in the challenges that lie ahead. However, if we are to offer lessons to others, we must relearn those lessons ourselves. Therefore, I cling to those words and the hope that, where we cannot agree, we do so as friends.

As my noble friend pointed out—so eloquently that there is no need for me to repeat it all—optimism explodes from every line of this gracious Speech rather like the champagne of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. There is enough clean air for the most jaded of souls, and I am delighted at its focus on tomorrow and particularly the young. By that, I do not mean up-and-coming young Peers like me but those whose first political memories might have been the bombing of the Twin Towers, after which came war upon war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Then we threw at them the mother and father of financial crises and drowned them in debt. Now, they look aghast as we do war among ourselves. Somehow, we have turned politics into a game that seems to have no rules and no referee. Can we not do better than that? We must do better than that.

However, I am an optimist—I have to be. I have four kids and am a grandfather and a Tory Back-Bencher, all roles for which survival requires endless doses of optimism. There will be life after Brexit, new mountains to climb and, yes, risks to take to reach those summits, but once we are there the view can be magnificent. There is no view more glorious or exhilarating from any summit in the world than that across the open highways, pleasant pastures and green mountains of our United Kingdom. Like my noble friend, I raise my eyes to heaven in the hope that I have not died in your Lordships’ arms. I humbly beg to second the Motion.

Motion to Adjourn

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