His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I join others in the House in sending condolences to Her Majesty and the Royal Family on their very sad loss. When, last Friday, I first heard the news of the death of His Royal Highness, my immediate instinct was to go down to Buckingham Palace to pay my respects outside, but then I discovered that that was officially discouraged. So, for that reason, it is a real privilege to have this opportunity to pay my tribute to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh and to give thanks for his remarkable lifetime of service and unstinting support for Her Majesty.

In the part of London where I live, there is a large electric screen on the side of a building that every few minutes flips between advertisements for one bright product and another. Last Friday, within minutes of the news coming out about the death of the Duke, it was frozen; all it showed was a single black silhouette of a head against a white background. No words were necessary; the features on the head were unmistakable, and the message was clear: this country has suffered a great loss.

His Royal Highness lived a life of great intensity and saw many upheavals. He was a dashing figure from a previous generation of heroes: a brave man with a distinguished war record, and a man of action, reflection and dedication. The international reaction to his death was revealing. One expected warm words from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and probably also from Zambia and Kenya, but there was also President Obrador, the left-wing President of Mexico, who thanked the Duke for his service to young people. All of us were aware of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, but what has come out more fully in the few days since his death is its extraordinary scale and the numbers of people, including from this House, who have benefited from the scheme, and how young lives were altered all over the globe.

I had the privilege of meeting the Duke on quite a few occasions, and I always enjoyed it, but the only government business I ever had with His Royal Highness was to do with the coinage, because he was a member of the advisory committee. He took a huge interest in the heraldic aspects of the coinage and in which birds, animals and flora were to be represented. He was also concerned with practical issues, such as whether the £1 coin would be identifiable by the blind.

In his diaries, Gyles Brandreth wrote that the Duke told him I was the obstacle to renewing the life of the royal yacht “Britannia”. I was horrified. That was not correct, and I took the liberty of writing to His Royal Highness to say so. I received a typically short and to the point vintage two-sentence letter, which I treasure: “Dear Lamont, I have no recollection of saying any such thing to Brandreth. How would I know what you thought?”

Humour was one of his ways of engaging with people. An Australian politician who campaigned for a republic in the referendum there on the monarchy told me how not long afterwards he met the Duke on a boat showing him around Sydney Harbour. “Are you one of those who campaigned against the monarchy?” the Duke asked. “Your Royal Highness,” he replied, “I have to confess that I am.” “Good”, the Duke replied, “I am always saying to Her Majesty, ‘Why do we have to come all this way to this godforsaken place?’” It was of course not true at all. He loved Australia, and he visited it 20 times. Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister, got it right when he was asked why the Duke was so popular in Australia. He said, “Because he is just like us.”

Sometimes, chinks appeared in the occasionally brusque exterior. Asked in an interview once whether he felt at home in Buckingham Palace, the Duke replied, curiously, “It depends on what you mean by ‘at home.’” It was an interesting reply from a man who, in his childhood, suffered exile, separation from his mother for years, the early death of his father, being virtually stateless and being passed from one relative to another. It seems somewhat improbable that a man with such an unstable, shifting background could have contributed so much to the stability and shaping of the modern monarchy. But he did exactly that, going from royal outsider to pillar of the nation. It was his steadfast partnership with Her Majesty for which we are profoundly grateful. It became a constant in our national life, earned respect for our country throughout the world and set a standard for duty which would inspire us all.