Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow all those who have offered their praise and gratitude to this remarkable person, who has reached a milestone moment in the history of this country. I have nothing but pleasure in adding my voice to theirs.

I will begin my remarks in a slightly different place following my noble friend Lady Merron, simply because I met the Queen once in Balmoral when her attire and sartorial sensitivity was quite different from the one the noble Baroness described. She wore a woolly jumper she had clearly worn habitually for a long time and a plaid skirt. She sat with us in a little group. I was the president of the Boys’ Brigade at the time, and there by her invitation, as she is patron of the Boys’ Brigade. She wanted in her Diamond Jubilee year of office to see all the charities with which she was associated.

It was a week or two after her much-lauded appearance at the opening of the Olympic Games. I had to make a speech and began by saying how much we admired the way she had made that parachuted entrance and come in to surprise everybody, how good it was to see how closely she had worked with James Bond, and that the star role the corgis had played pleased us too. There was a corgi at her feet as I spoke and I said, “Was that one of them?” She nodded. I said, “Where’s the other one?” “Dead,” she said. I promise you that, as an accomplished public speaker—I hope I am accomplished—I was stopped dead in my tracks.

I was furiously inventing the next sentence. It was to send forth a young man who was going to replicate the sending of the Olympic torch around these islands at the opening of the Olympic Games, but ours was to be a message from Her Majesty the Queen to the Boys’ Brigade annual council, which was to take place that year in Cardiff. She, with great pleasure, handed over a baton that had been given to the Boys’ Brigade by her grandfather, King George V, and a champion runner from Scotland then took it on the first leg. Three weeks later in Cardiff, it came in in the hands of another runner and was presented to me. I had given it to her, and I received it back from her. I read how glad she was to greet the president of the Boys’ Brigade, but she had said that before she sent it, and it was lovely to have the circle completed in that way.

The only other time that I have met Her Majesty was when I was introduced to her at a children’s charity by the then Speaker of the House of Commons, George Thomas. He said as he introduced me, “This is the president of the Methodist Conference.” “Oh,” she said, “and what does the president of the Methodist Conference amount to?” I replied, “Well, half my job is cheering up the troops and the other half is representing them to the larger world outside,” to which she said, “Oh, a bit like my job.” Those occasions have shown me her in a light that I would never otherwise have seen her in.

My academic studies were in literature and theology and, in both those disciplines, I learned how important symbols are. The way that I think about symbols has always been a part of the way that I look at life in general. One moment that I want to refer to—I think of it with some feeling—is a mystery that I have been wrestling with all my life, from when I was a child in south Wales. We were in dire circumstances. I was brought up in one room in a brickyard, in penury. I do not tell that tale in order that noble Lords reach for their clean handkerchiefs but to say that, in this rather bare hovel where I lived, with one window and no toilet—we slept, ate and did everything in the same room—the walls were unadorned except for two pictures that had been taken from a newspaper and stuck with flour paste, which we used to make to put up the Christmas decorations. They were pictures of Prince Charles and Princess Anne, both very young, if not babies—Anne was a baby. I have never understood how the most remarkable woman in my life, my mother, who was brought up within the constraints of dire poverty—literally having nothing—could keep a place in her imagination for whatever it was that these two pictures represented. The capacity of the monarchy to free itself from all the stuff about wealth, privilege and all the rest of it and to penetrate to something deeper than those mere mechanistic and arithmetical considerations is astonishing.

On another occasion, when I was 11 and my brother was 10, still living as I have just described, my mother insisted on the wettest of wet Welsh days—I promise you that they can be wetter than anywhere on the earth—that we went through the town from the little place on the building trade supply site where I lived to the top of the town, to Achddu corner, in the shadow of Jerusalem Chapel, the windiest place in Burry Port. Why? Because Her Majesty, just crowned, would be going through in a car from somewhere west of us to somewhere east of us. We caught a glimpse of her as she went past, and I have always struggled to understand how my mother could feel that it was the most important thing she wanted us two boys to do that day.

It is grappling with the mystery of the monarchy, as much as its obvious and wonderful external manifestations, that has been part of my attempt to understand just what happens in these august fields. I shall never forget the picture of Her Majesty, unaided and already in advanced years, walking up the steps to the library at Trinity College, Dublin, and turning around when she got there to greet the assembled company in the Irish language. I shall never forget what that amounted to. When all the backstage discussions, negotiations, quarrels and all the rest of it were taking place, it was a symbol that could achieve more simply by it happening, visually and imaginatively, than quite a lot of what happens in more tedious and circumlocutory ways.

We want to honour such a person, who, on so many levels in the public consciousness and within our national culture, plays a role and touches places that others cannot reach. For a teetotal Methodist, I think that was a good allusion.

My final remark will simply pick up, without developing in quite the same way, what the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said. I find the way that the Queen manifestly speaks her Christian faith so charming. As a student of theology, I know that it took 450 years to frame what we now call the Nicene Creed. After all the shenanigans that went on and all the circumlocutive language within which it is framed in the different styles of Greek spoken around the Mediterranean world—and after, I think, Pope Leo I sent in his troops to say, “If we don’t get this creed today, we’re going to do something drastic to you all”—we got the Nicene Creed. The Queen opens her mouth and mentions the name of Jesus Christ as if He is her friend, and in a non-excluding way. I know people who mouth the religious language—of course, I do—but sometimes in a way that feels partisan, sectarian or “us against the world”. She is who she is, and the way she says it says to a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or a person of no faith, “I just want you to know who I am”. For me, all these things are profound. We could add a catalogue of ways in which we could recognise all the this-and-thats. I want to pay my tribute and do so not only from experiences I have had, but out of the disciplines in which I have been immersed for the whole of my life. God bless her.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 99 and 116 deal with the difficult area of mortgage prisoners. Both amendments seek to go beyond what has already been achieved for mortgage prisoners by the relaxation of affordability rules by the FCA.

I have much sympathy for mortgage prisoners, but we should not lose sight of the fact that these borrowers do not have sufficient financial credentials to qualify for new mortgage lending under current regulatory rules and hence cannot remortgage. They are a hangover from the period when lending criteria were much less strict than they are now and include interest-only borrowers who lack a credible way of repaying capital.

We should be wary of going beyond what the FCA has already done. In particular, making the FCA specify maximum interest rates is an unwarranted market intervention. The FCA is best placed to judge whether any further solutions can be found for these problem borrowers. We should not try to solve the problems of a relatively small number of people with blunderbuss legislation.

My main reason for speaking on this group is Amendment 117, which is fundamentally misconceived. My noble friend Lord True, when he spoke to the large group of amendments headed by Amendment 79 on our previous Committee day, talked about the importance of the securitisation market for mortgage providers. Securitisation ensures that lenders can carry on originating new debt by freeing up capital and liquidity. This is especially important in the mortgage market.

Amendment 117, which requires written consent for every mortgage sold, is not practical. It is likely to mean that lenders will be shut out of the securitisation market. Mortgages are not sold individually: they are parcelled up into books. Requiring consent will make this very much harder to do and will significantly add to the costs of the procedure. Anyone who has tried to get responses from individual account holders where there is no incentive for the account holder to respond will tell you that this is mission impossible.

Mortgage securitisation is a normal balance sheet financing strategy for both retail and commercial lenders. Making it more difficult or expensive for mortgages will have consequences for consumers, whether by restricting the availability of credit or increasing its cost, or both. I cannot support any of the amendments in this group.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee long. I would not normally be seen near a finance Bill, largely because I do not have and do not ever expect to have any finance to bother me. Nor would I presume to discuss mortgage payments, since I do not have and never will have a mortgage to worry about. However, what I do have is some experience of people in all kinds of situations, good and bad, from the cradle to the grave.

It was a conversation with someone whom I knew well that made me aware of the truly dreadful situation that we are debating and that they found themselves in. Here was someone who was in a bad—a very bad —situation: they and 250,000 others. My noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, have done us a great service in highlighting the plight of these people and have worked out a reasonable way to help them. I am happy to leave the heavy lifting on the matter to them and, no doubt, other Members of the Committee who will chip in on the same side of the argument. They have made a compelling case in detail and with passion, all of which will help to disguise the extent of my own ignorance.

I simply must express my bewilderment at the way, when this subject was debated in the House of Commons, no less a person than the Economic Secretary to the Treasury gave voice to some rather misleading statements. He said, for example, that “mortgage prisoners” were paying a mere 0.4% higher than average mortgages. That figure has been mentioned more than once and is simply not true, according to the picture that I have seen painted in reliable reports from various quarters. He also suggested that when the mortgages in question were sold to “vulture funds” and other non-regulated bodies, the borrowers retained all the same conditions stipulated in their original agreements. From the conversation that I had and other cases that I have subsequently read about, that just is not the case.

The Government seem to have treated mortgage prisoners as cash cows, a means of paying down Treasury debt, after the decision to rescue the banks after the crisis of 2008. On the day that conversation arose, I thought that it would be a friendly interchange on the streets of my home town, with perhaps a mention of the unexpected good fortune of the Welsh rugby team—but it actually opened a can of worms. The person I was speaking to is considered to be a “problem borrower”, one of the people referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. But my friend is a problem borrower largely because of the depredation of resources due to the fact that she has been paying mortgages over the odds for 10 years now. Even someone whose only qualification for speaking in this debate is an O-level in economics found himself smelling a rat as he spotted an egregious injustice being done to mortgage prisoners.

The amendments seek to correct this situation. They are balanced and sensible. Martin Lewis, who was quoted more than once by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and is a true expert in this field, writes this:

“Mortgage prisoners are the forgotten victims of the 2008 financial crash. The Government at the time chose to bail out the banks, but unfairly—immorally—hundreds of thousands of their victims were left without adequate help, trapped in their mortgages and the financial misery caused by it.”


No wonder they are problem borrowers. He continued:

“And they have been forgotten ever since.”


The Bill and the amendments give us an opportunity to unforget them, to make good on past failures, and to bring justice to a situation yearning for it. The Minister is a decent and fair man but will of course be bound by the usual conventions in a debate of this kind. It would be good to hear him promise to go back to his department to try to find a way of bringing a little hope and cheer to those who suffer in this way.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate on this first group of amendments. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on the manner in which he introduced the amendment. I also thank him for giving a wave to my Amendment 127 on this subject, which found itself a prisoner in a different group of amendments but was very much to the purpose of this group. Simply put, it would prohibit any more individuals becoming mortgage prisoners in this way.

Media and Lobby Briefings

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am amazed at the straight face the Minister kept throughout that Answer. I had little time to prepare myself to interrogate him and limited my research to visiting the Library. It is clear from the coverage in today’s press that a number of senior journalists for very important newspapers take a slightly different view from that expressed a minute ago by the noble Earl, who was repeating the Answer given in the other place. I cannot believe that the disparity between the way in which it was reported in the newspapers and the Statement that this Government are

“committed to being open in its dealings with the press and to the principles of media freedom”

can be easily reconciled. I am trying to avoid my suspicion of paranoia on the part of the Prime Minister by being myself paranoid. Yet I wonder on the basis of yesterday’s incident, which exemplifies a number of other well-known and well-reported incidents, whether we should not be a little more frank than the reply given in this particular Statement.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I have to say to the noble Lord and your Lordships that, having myself been briefed earlier today, it became clear to me that a certain amount of disingenuousness has entered the public debate on this matter and in some of the press reporting. Briefings to selected journalists have been common practice across government for many years. I know that myself from my time in the Ministry of Defence. We had regular selected briefings for journalists. The briefing in Downing Street yesterday that has been covered in the press was explicitly billed as one such selected briefing, and I understand that invitations were issued to between five and 10 journalists. There should have been no misunderstanding about that. There is therefore nothing unusual in briefings for selected journalists.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, may I raise a short constitutional question that came up last week and which relates to this? In our debate on Clause 38 last Thursday, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, from the Government Front Bench said that Dicey is the absolute authority on parliamentary sovereignty. Dicey’s view on parliamentary sovereignty was that it was indivisible, that it cannot be shared upwards or downwards. His views were strengthened by his bitter opposition to the whole idea of home rule either for Ireland or for Scotland. He believed strongly that the imperial Parliament was therefore the only authority of British imperial law.

That doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, strongly held, is of course one reason why those who wish us to leave the European Union have objected to the whole principle of European law interfering with the sovereignty of British law as defined by Parliament. It seems to me, therefore, that as part of the process we go through as we leave the European Union, and as we proceed towards some sort of constitutional convention, we will have to redefine the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty so as to accept that these devolved Assemblies —these devolved nations—have more than the occasional permission of the Westminster Parliament to do as they wish, and that they have certain entrenched rights that are not compatible with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty as defined by this rather prejudiced, late-Victorian lawyer.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, some of the speeches have painted on a large canvas. I would like to focus on the amendment itself. I am reminded of a discussion here yesterday about the possibility—perhaps fatuous—of moving this Chamber to York in the name of reaching out to the population of this country. I mention that because, 20 years ago, in the name of reaching out to the country at large, the devolved Administrations came into being. The 20 years in between have offered enough evidence of the fact that you do not just bring things into being; you support and sustain them by developing a relationship that enhances partnership between the devolved bodies and the United Kingdom Parliament. I wish that people on other Benches would realise just how disappointed people in the devolved areas are about what has happened over the last 20 years and the way in which—begrudgingly, as it seems to them—some concessions and developments have come into being. I just wish people could feel that.

I have three children. When they were growing up, as teenagers, the most important aspect of parenthood that we had to learn was the moment when you establish trust. You move away from authoritarian modes of existence with your own children, and you trust them, even when sometimes they make mistakes. It seems to me that, in this amendment, we are asking simply to give visibility to a stance that we could describe as trust; that is the heart of it. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said, it does not seek to change the provisions of the Bill; it just says that we should trust each other as we go along.

I would be surprised if I am the only one who has had to educate myself, because the new clause proposed by the amendment would, if accepted, go in after clauses that describe the UK-EU joint committee, and it is terribly confusing to talk about the Joint Ministerial Committee in the context of movements that bring that joint UK-EU committee into being. It does not end there, because we are talking about the Joint Ministerial Committee European Union sub-committee. The action we are trying to establish good relations for is what will happen in the discussions with Europe to bring about our ongoing relationship, in the period following the enactment of the Bill. We should therefore remember that we are looking to have these things written into the Bill to apply for a limited period.

My noble friend Lord Howarth is quite right: of course you cannot legislate for the processes of consultation. He went on to say that willingness cannot be legislated for, but unwillingness might necessitate legislation—and there has been unwillingness. There is a lack of empathy. Even the noble Lord opposite spoke about hardness and refusing to accept a position that will create difficulties. That is never in anyone’s mind at all.

I go back to discussions in Committee and the intervention made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who said:

“The best option would be to include representatives of the devolved Administrations in the negotiating teams that go to Brussels when the subject for discussion is going to touch on the competence of the devolved Administrations.”—[Official Report, 15/1/20; col. 672.]


If they are going to discuss the competence of the devolved Administrations, is it not fair and proper that those from the devolved Administrations most affected might be there to add their voice to the discussions? Is that not reasonable? Are we not talking about common sense?

We are looking at this in a binary way, thinking that everybody who has a different view is somehow invested with animosity towards the Government. We are talking about bringing out of all this something that stands up and appeals to people on the basis of common decency and fair play. I am happy to rest my case there.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, we strongly support Amendment 17, without which the whole nation of Wales could be excluded from preparing for input into the UK-EU negotiations. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, and as the letter of 16 January from the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, to your Lordships sets out—I hope people have now got it—the Government have promised that representatives of the Northern Ireland Executive will be invited to be part of the UK delegation and to take part in any meetings of the joint committee discussing Northern Ireland where the Irish Government are involved.

That guarantee is welcome; I do not undermine that at all. But where is the equivalent recognition that, where the specific issues of other constituent parts of the UK are discussed, they too can be at the table, or at the very least be assured that the JMC on EU Negotiations has been briefed and will feed into Her Majesty’s Government’s negotiating position with the EU? The Government are seen as giving scant regard to the devolved authorities’ interests and legitimate role in the negotiation, which is why a statutory role is needed. As my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon said, the voluntary way has not worked sufficiently well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, to sum up briefly, the Minister will have heard the strength of feeling in this House and the state of perplexity and bewilderment at the legislative record on this: the section is in the 2018 Act and there was no provision in the first version of this Bill to delete it. Therefore, in terms of continuity, the position would point to the Government accepting the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which would surely be the graceful and gracious thing for the Government to do. The strength of feeling no doubt indicates to the Government that they might otherwise have to deal with a vote in this House. There is a way out for them, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able to take it.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

My Lords, the debate has been eloquent and emotion has played its part. I must begin by paying yet another tribute, for the second time today, to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who has proved to have an expertise in the area of bafflement as much as anything else. The clever way in which he unpicked the strands from the balls of wool that had got tangled up and pulled them out for us to look at just left us totally bewildered, so that when it all settled back again we understood as little as we did before he began.

I have listened to the arguments, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for whom I have nothing but respect, will need to listen a little harder on the nature of the lack of trust, which is dependent not on political, adverserial positions but on a genuine feeling that we are at a moment in our parliamentary history where we have lost the art of building consensus and taking an argument forward with the respect and even affection we have for each other when we are outside the debating Chamber. It seems to me that in this debate we have reached that sort of point.

It is a source of great wonderment to me that something put in an Act just 18 months ago is now not in it and that arguments are being put forward to justify taking it out. I certainly do not understand it, but it is a long time since I took my bachelor of arts degree and perhaps I am getting addled in my old age. But it is for a small group of children—children with relatives, which limits the number even further—on the part of a Government who have already done so well in the area looking after the interests of children. It is not an instruction to the Government to do this or that which we are seeking to put into this amendment. It is not about outcomes. It is to start or keep alive a process of negotiation on this issue.

The right reverend Prelate is quite right that this has a moral dimension. We must never forget that. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, mentioning “urgency”, “two months” and all the rest of it reminds us that we have a chance here to put this into the Bill in a way that gets things started at once, for an objective which I cannot believe a single person in this House would refuse to want and desire. I do not know. I am new to this game of politics. I try my best, I really do.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, quoting the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, emphasised that point; nobody is seeking to tell the Government what to do or what point to reach in what they do. There is a difference between outcomes and process. All we want in the Bill is that a process be entered into. Outcomes will depend on the negotiations. That is the desire here. Other people have spoken eloquently. I hope that, in a spirit of generosity, there will be no riding of high horses because “We’ve won an election”. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, it is in the school of humanity that we will be judged, not on our party, partisan positions.

The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, is another person to whom I have listened with enormous respect in the short time that I have been doing this work, and I hold her in that respect now. Yesterday, an agreement was forged via the usual channels on a stance on an issue that would arise later in the evening. During the afternoon, that stance was totally modified, and we had to take our people through the Lobbies in an entirely different way. If that can happen in an afternoon, perhaps there is some justification for trust needing to be earned.

So, the matter is before us. I am quite sure that we will be asked to vote on it, but it is a terribly serious issue about the body politic in this country. This is an admirable debate where we can learn the art of constructive engagement and putting together a better tomorrow.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, this is an important stage in the debate. With the agreement of the usual channels, we are going to put off the rest of the debate until after lunch to allow noble Lords to think about this. The Minister will wind up after lunch.

Business of the House

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

I think I have grasped that point on one or two occasions before from my noble friend. I do not deny that other people share that view, but the reality is that a power play is going on here, with the use of an instrument to control Parliament, to control this House, which has never been seen in this House before—the guillotine.

I am honoured to be a member of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, which is one of the most important committees of the House—thank goodness that your Lordships’ House has such a committee. That committee is currently considering some of the issues that arise from fixed-term parliament legislation, and I hope that when its report is issued, it will be helpful to all of us in this House. But today, we are seeing constitutional issues on the make in front of us. We have an unprecedented, far-reaching Motion proposed which would, if it became part of the practice of this House, as it has become part of the practice of the other House, change the nature of parliamentary government in this country. That is absolutely the case.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

Having heard an identical speech many times in the course of this evening, I wonder whether the noble Lord could speak to his amendment so that we may hear the substance? It seems to me that we are being driven towards losing time by the prevarication of those who are speaking at great length and so often.

[Lord True]

This is entirely germane to the constitution. This amendment is about the need for the Constitution Committee of this House to consider the implications of such a dramatic change to the normal procedures of this Chamber. Surely we pride ourselves on the quality of our committees: that is one of the reasons why we are respected, in so far as we are still respected in this nation.

I am surprised by the concern about and hostility towards the idea of the Constitution Committee being involved to consider these matters. I think that it would be profoundly helpful. Is there some fear that the Constitution Committee might think that this is not a particularly helpful way to proceed in this House?

Death of a Member: Baroness Thatcher

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

If I may draw your Lordships’ attention to an entirely different aspect of the life and character of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, it to mention her origins as a good Methodist. This has already been mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford. Lady Thatcher was born in Grantham in the county of Lincolnshire, and of course John Wesley was himself born in that same county, at Epworth. She was born into a very devout Methodist home, and the pieties and religious practices of that home, as well as the values and principles, were early learnt. I believe she had them processed into her very being, and I shared my views about that with her later on in her life.

I want to register where she comes from in terms of the primordial energies that shaped her character. She came down to London to pursue her career, although while at Oxford, as well as pursuing her scientific career, she was part of a preaching team that went around the villages near Oxford to take the Gospel and pronounce good news. Some of those who were in the team with her are still alive and will tell you their own tales. If only we could get the Appointments Commission to bring them into your Lordships’ House they would regale us with many a tale.

I believe therefore not just that I should introduce an element that is artificially drawn in, granted the grand themes that have already been adumbrated in previous speeches, but that I should describe something that was essentially her. She and Denis were married at Wesley’s chapel, where I have the privilege to be the minister, and Carol and Mark were baptised there a little later. She had an enduring fondness for the chapel and came back regularly. I say to many visitors who come our way that if they look at the handsome communion rail that was given to us by Margaret Thatcher, it is the kind of evidence that everybody needs that, despite all those who say the opposite, she did actually help some people to their feet. It is worth noticing that as a vice-president of the Friends of Wesley’s Chapel she was a faithful friend, although, of course, as many Methodists do, she was translated into the other place, namely the Church of England, and made that her spiritual dwelling place on a regular basis.

I would have loved to have shared with her my feelings about her quotation of a sermon by John Wesley when she was in Edinburgh. It was a sermon on money, and of course, she was well known to have her own views about that. I think that she wanted to draw John Wesley very much into her own thinking and to make him suit her purpose. She quoted two points of Wesley’s sermon: that it was the responsibility of all Christians to earn all they can—that is all right—and to save all they can, although I can personally attest that with a 0.5% interest rate there is not much point in doing that these days. However, she omitted the third point of John Wesley’s argument—that having earned, and having saved, good Christian people should be altruists, spending and giving all they can for the common good.

As I say, she was a great friend. It is interesting that as well as being the minister of the church where her marriage service took place, I happen to be an honorary canon of the cathedral where her funeral service will take place. I shall be there next Wednesday in that capacity.

There are many points upon which I disagreed fundamentally with her. When she came, for example, to open one of the two museums that we have on our site—it was in 1981 and things were not going well for her at that time—many of us who championed the cause of the poor and were very radical young Methodists were out there, shouting the odds and sounding a different music from what was inside the building she was opening. She was as well briefed for a humble visit to the Methodist chapel as she ever was on matters of policy in the ways that have been alluded to in previous speeches. She knew the answers even though we who were there all the time often did not. It is strange that God, or whatever noble and secular Lords want to substitute for God, has put a sense of humour at the heart of things. This young Turk who was asking for this chapel to be pulled down and for the money raised to be given to the poor is now the minister of the very chapel that he wanted to be destroyed and disposed of.

However, she was a friend to the end. She wanted to come to church the week after their 50th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, she suffered a stroke in the course of a short holiday that she was then taking in Madeira and was not able to come. I count it a great privilege to have known her just a little. She exchanged some opinions with me—for example, about South Africa at a crucial stage in its life. She said “The chief’s the man”, meaning of course Chief Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party—and she could not have been more wrong, could she? At the same time, she did things which I suspect we on our Benches would be glad of because they were things that we would have liked to have done but perhaps did not have the right positioning to do.

Hers was a very complex character. History will tell, but she was larger than life. The inhabitants of the county of Lincolnshire are known popularly as yellowbellies. She was not one of those.