Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
Lord Farmer Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the excellent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport.
As many have said today, it is one of the greatest privileges of my life to be able to stand in this House and honour, as her humble citizen, our extraordinary Queen. I thank God that 70 of my 77 years have been under her reign. This unprecedented period of peace and growing prosperity has, in good part, been influenced by her faithfulness to her position.
How has our Queen been able to be so consistent and gracious to all her subjects over these 70 years? I have met her only once, but I remember the kindness of her smile. Knowing our own frailties, we are all in awe of her constancy. The answer—here I follow the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham—lies in her continuous confession of her trust in and reliance on God her father and Jesus her saviour.
Her biographer, William Shawcross, said:
“Two things stand out—the Queen’s constant sense of duty and her devotion to God.”
Of this she speaks humbly but openly, especially in her Christmas broadcasts. She was clear during her first Christmas broadcast in 1952 that she would not have the strength to serve unceasingly without the prayers of the people of the Commonwealth and Empire, and humbly asked for them as she prepared to dedicate her life at the Coronation. She referred to this on her 90th birthday, saying:
“I have been—and remain—very grateful to you for your prayers and to God for his steadfast love. I have indeed seen his faithfulness.”
She is right. Millions of Christians have faithfully prayed for her to live long, for her kingdom to be at peace and for the common good. Standing back, when we see her reign in the context of the grand sweep of world history, these prayers have been answered spectacularly.
To my mind, her Christmas messages have all been about responding to the example of her Lord Jesus, who came to serve, not to be served, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Who knows? She has possibly been advised to universalise her message and talk blandly about “the season” or wish everybody “happy holidays”. I suspect that, if she has needed to resist such siren calls, she will have done so because she knows her saviour and her saviour knows her, because of an ongoing relationship.
At key moments she has referred to drawing strength from God, which comes from that daily walk with Him. Such strengthening is needed not just in extremis; it becomes the default for people such as the Queen who are constantly required to put others’ needs ahead of their own and to take others with them on a difficult journey.
I have heard it said that there are two types of people in public life: those who want to be something and those who want to do something. Her Majesty is possibly unique in that she has had no choice but to be both those types of people simultaneously. She has done a tremendous amount, as many noble Lords have pointed out: for example, serving in the Second World War, and continuing to fulfil onerous royal duties into her 90s.
She has also had to embody an ideal—never an easy thing to do, especially as the composite of that ideal has shifted suitably since she ascended the throne. The expectation in the 1950s, when the country was finally beginning to slough off post-war austerity and set its course for a new era, was that she should embody serenity—many royals across the world are, after all, known as serene highnesses. There was also an expectation that the family she raised would be an ideal example. Later in her life, after more than one annus horribilis, she found herself being criticised for being too serene—certainly not emoting enough—especially when it was clear that her family was not so much an ideal example as a typical one.
To live successfully in the public eye for 70 years, and necessarily to maintain legitimacy in the public affection, has required a very strong sense of identity. Identity is how we see ourselves, in contrast to image, which is how others see us. Just like a socially held ideal, a personally held identity shifts over time: we grow older; we move up the generations; hopefully we grow wiser. Identity is a very live issue in the zeitgeist today. The received wisdom is that identity should be entirely self-made and that the ability to realise that ideal increases in proportion with wealth, status and the autonomy these convey.
The Queen is a monumental exception to that formula. Her identity—what she is and was able to be—has always derived from her royal responsibilities and a sense of duty and service. In this, she is less unique than people realise. Her Christian faith means this would have been the case whatever her station in this earthly life. For Christians, their sense of identity flows not from wealth, status or even ethnicity, sex, gender or whatever; rather, it flows from their relationship with their Lord Jesus Christ, from whence flows, as St Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians,
“the fruit of the spirit”,
which characterise her life: love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, patience, faithfulness and self-control.
To reiterate, prayer has been an indispensable element of the support she has received from so many people. Turning to the New Testament as I close, in the first chapter of Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he urged that
“petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made … for kings and all those in authority.”
I thank God for answering these prayers for Her Majesty so very graciously. I cannot think of any other figure who has done what she has. She is the Queen of the world, known and revered by so many in so many different lands. I spoke to an Australian friend of mine last week about this debate. He said, “The Queen’s sense of duty and service are a wonder of the modern world.” Yet she would be the first to give credit to the noble king of kings and lord of lords whom she serves, to acknowledge that the esteem in which she is held is further evidence of the undeserved grace she has been able to draw on—to lean on—every day of her life. We never want to lose her, but the day will surely come when she passes through the veil into eternity and stands before her king. Then, He will say,
“Well done, my good and faithful servant … Come and share your master’s joy.”
I congratulate my gracious sovereign Queen, Queen Elizabeth II, on her Platinum Jubilee and I thank my Lord for her.
Afghanistan
Lord Farmer Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, it is my sincere hope that blood and treasure have not been squandered in vain in Afghanistan, but the global existential threat, the manner of foreign powers’ leaving and the immense and pervasive fear on the ground all amount to a desperately concerning and unstable situation. Yes, the Taliban are inviting women to join the Government and offering a general amnesty, but they could, of course, be dissembling to steady the national mood and to give a nod to assurances made to the Americans. What the Taliban high command say at a global news conference and what younger fighters, intoxicated by victory, do in communities are scarily different things.
We could not maintain a presence in Afghanistan indefinitely. Not only has nation-building proved to be a particularly elusive goal, but the US President made it clear that it was not one he shared. However, we have to ask ourselves why, as per the chair of the Defence Select Committee, the biggest military high-tech alliance we have ever created was defeated by an insurgency armed simply with AK-47s and landmines.
We have to recognise that it was also armed with a powerful, compelling ideology, however disagreeable many aspects of it are to us. The West has no similarly potent value system to muster in response. Our hyper-liberal individualism is, by definition, incapable of inspiring concerted action against a common foe when there is no unifying concept but the importance of “me”. The Second World War was the last time this country was united against forces of evil, standing alone and being ready to fight to the death for our values and freedoms. Then, the nation’s Judaeo-Christian ethical underpinning and trust in God were far less threadbare than today, to our detriment.
Freedom of speech is fast becoming a meaningless concept in many western societies. Universities and institutions dictate rigid orthodoxies and ensure that people who deviate are hounded out of employment and cast beyond the pale. Yet, ironically, much effort in Afghanistan was focused on laying down deep seams of freedom in the national culture and sowing seeds about the importance of equality of opportunity for men, women and minorities.
The Taliban believe in a God; Christians believe in a God who values every life; whereas the root of secularism is simply a belief in the infallible “me”. We despair of the chaos on the ground in Afghanistan, but the disintegration of our spiritual backbone blinds us to the chaos all around us, and to its inevitable end-point: the decay and decline of the West.
House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings
Lord Farmer Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the facility to participate in the House of Lords remotely has proved invaluable during the pandemic and while its effects peter out, particularly the prescription to keep one’s distance. However, we cannot gloss over the considerable disadvantages of hybrid working in order to maintain the convenience and easy access it has facilitated.
Virtual or hybrid working makes it impossible to take the temperature of the House and almost kills spontaneity, as we have already heard, and the ability to interact informally and to comprehensively understand each other when we speak in proceedings. Non-verbal communication is disastrously dampened when someone contributes by Zoom. Put simply, 55% of communication is body language, 38% is tone of voice and 7% is the actual words spoken. If one’s camera is turned off and there are any bandwidth or other technical problems which distort tone of voice, sometimes all that is left is the attenuated influence of disembodied words. I profoundly disagree that the principle of equal participation should be fundamental or guiding when it so profoundly depletes the effectiveness of in-person interaction. It is another example of extending the logic of equality beyond reason.
Moreover, parliamentary process must serve not our convenience but the common good of the people affected by the laws we pass and the policies we influence through debate, committees and questions. In this chronically divided society, considered and courteous debate is more important than ever, and the House of Lords is one of the few places where it can happen. We hold the Government of the day to account through scrutiny, revision and amendment, and through interaction with each other and Members of the other place. The ability of the House of Lords to fulfil these criteria should fundamentally guide our course, not the self-serving principle that every Member must be able to contribute equally.
Processes were far from perfect pre-pandemic but, as the Constitution Committee’s report Covid-19 and Parliament, which was published last week, points out, hybrid proceedings may have actually aggravated their downsides. Oversubscribed debates, which are more likely when one can just dial in, mean Members with significant subject expertise have risibly short speaking times. Similarly, voting has become ridiculously easy. I am aware of one Peer who has voted from the seat of his lawn-mower. Our being turned into voting machines from home advantages the Whips, particularly those of the Opposition, who can easily organise rebellions. The privilege of voting should be the preserve of those who are willing to turn up. I welcome the benefits of remote proceedings for Members with disabilities, health concerns, caring responsibilities or long journeys to London, but such benefits belong to these unprecedented times and should not become business as usual.
The pandemic may not be fully behind us for a little while, especially in global terms, but once we have all had two doses of vaccine and society opens properly, we have to get back to the primacy of presence. If Members of the House of Commons are all coming back, then so should we. To be candid, for the sake of the public who are paying our way, personal infirmity should not provide grounds for exemption from normality. Parliamentary participation is for those able to bring vitality to proceedings. This is neither ageist nor dismissive of those with disabilities. It is my observation that many disabled Peers have actually been very good attenders during Covid, and we can all think of nonagenarians whose contributions in this place make us sit up and take note—I hope eventually perhaps to be one of them. But the public is already impatient with the high average age of this House, and if infirmities of mind or body make that vital contribution impossible, any permanently lowered bar to participation serves Peers’ interests, not those of the public. The previous norm should be reinstated: those of us who cannot come to the House cannot contribute.
Covid-19: Road Map
Lord Farmer Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I can certainly say to my noble friend that we will continue to work with the Places of Worship Taskforce to ensure that advice is available for religious communities and faith leaders so we can enable the safe opening of places of worship as we move forward through the steps in the road map.
Lord Farmer (Con) [V]
My Lords, our internationally harsh lockdown is driving mental ill health and unravelling our social fabric. Accordingly, should not parity of esteem between physical and mental health dictate that more than two SAGE advisers are mental health experts? Also, will the Government persist with the dispiriting law of the Medes and Persians, which permits the goalposts to be moved only in a more restrictive direction, even if the four indicators drop off a metaphorical cliff?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am afraid I do not agree with my noble friend on his last point, but I certainly I agree with him on the importance of support for mental health, and he will know that expert participation in SAGE changes for each meeting. What I hope will reassure him is that in March, we will be publishing our cross-government action plan to prevent, mitigate and respond to the impact of Covid on mental health and well-being. We have already announced that the NHS will receive an extra £500 million to address waiting times and enhance support for mental health services. During the pandemic, we rolled out 24/7, all-age urgent mental care helplines across the country, provided more than £100 million to the voluntary sector and, recently, appointed a youth mental health ambassador to build on our support for young people. I hope this range of investment and initiatives shows the noble Lord how important we consider this issue.
Covid 19: Winter Plan
Lord Farmer Excerpts(3 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
What I can say is that this is one of the areas in which the mass testing programme rollout can be used. For instance, local authority directors of public health may wish to roll out one of their programmes to higher-risk industries, for instance. Those are exactly the kinds of situations where local authorities may wish to use this programme to deal with the very issues that the noble Baroness set out.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, at great personal cost, as well as social and financial cost to the country, millions have now had Covid and therefore have antibodies. I am indeed one of them. Significant savings can be made by excluding anyone who has contracted the disease in, say, the last six months, from needlessly being traced, tested or required to isolate, including after returning from abroad. So what has been decided about such people and where they should come in the pecking order for vaccination?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
In relation to the pecking order, as my noble friend said, for the vaccination, it will be for the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to advise the Government on which vaccine should be used and what the priority groups are—and the committee has indeed issued some interim advice on this already.
Another initiative that we are launching which will, to a degree, help to address my noble friend’s points going forward, is the plan to introduce frequent testing as an alternative to the need to self-isolate for people who have had close contact with someone who has had Covid. The contacts would have regular tests during an isolation period and would have to self-isolate only if they tested positive.
European Council
Lord Farmer Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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