80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan
Lord Ricketts Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Lord Ricketts (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the founding chairman of the British Normandy Memorial. I congratulate the Minister on his powerful opening and the right reverend Prelate on her excellent maiden speech.
A lot of this week has been about celebrating VE Day but, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Hunter and Lady Meyer, have powerfully said, we should not forget those who fought and served in the Far East, including my father, who was in the Fourteenth Army in Burma. They called themselves the Forgotten Army but it is right that they are not forgotten today. We should also remember that for millions of people in eastern Europe, 8 or 9 May was a day when they swapped one totalitarian occupation for another, and it was another 45 years before they had their liberation day.
As we have heard in today’s debate, celebration has to go hand in hand with the commemoration of those whose sacrifices made victory possible. I want to reflect briefly on the trends in commemoration, on the strength of the experience of designing, building and running the British Normandy Memorial. This was the first major UK national memorial overseas for several decades. The tradition in this country is that we commemorate here at a national commemoration monument, at the Cenotaph or the Unknown Warrior, while overseas the focus for commemoration is in the intensely moving Commonwealth war graves cemeteries. But the initiative for a national memorial in Normandy came from a group of veterans. They wanted all the comrades who fell in the 1944 battle to be remembered in one place, as is the case with the American and Canadian memorials.
With generous help from the Government and many donations from the public, we built what I think I can say is a fine memorial overlooking Gold Beach, which opened to the public in 2021. We benefited a lot from the contribution of other noble Lords: the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, who has now taken over from me as chairman, and the noble Lords, Lord Janvrin, Lord Soames and Lord Kakkar, who are also trustees of the Spirit of Normandy Trust. We were enormously honoured when the King and Queen, with President and Madame Macron, presided at the official opening on 6 June last year, and it was moving to hear His Majesty refer to his visit to Normandy in the speech he gave at the VE Day concert last night.
One advantage of a national memorial is that it can be inclusive, telling the story of not just a single engagement but an entire military campaign, in our case from 6 June to 31 August 1944. Our memorial commemorates all those who fell under British command, of many nationalities, and includes those in the merchant marine—22,440 men and two women from the Queen Alexandra’s nursing service. One name, indeed, who figures among them, having been killed on 6 June, is Sergeant Vernon Coaker.
The memorial is inclusive in another sense as well. We built a separate memorial on the site to the many thousands of French civilians who were killed in that summer of 1944. Over the last 80 years, the citizens of Normandy have welcomed back the veterans, calling them “our liberators”, and it is only right that the suffering of their forebears should also be remembered.
My second trend is that commemoration needs to be more digital if it is to transmit successfully to the next generation the memory of what happened and why. We invested in a state-of-the-art app so that our roll of honour can be searched. Many families have generously donated photographs, letters home and journals, all of which are now available online. I, like other noble Lords, am convinced that telling the human stories behind the names graven in stone on memorials is the best way to keep interest alive in those momentous events. Our trust has recently completed the Winston Churchill education centre and is focusing on programmes for schoolchildren.
My last trend is the constant need to be creative. These VE Day celebrations have shown the power of creativity. For the second summer, we are delighted to welcome at the British memorial the haunting life-size silhouettes of service men and women created by the charity Standing with Giants. It has installed 1,475 figures at our memorial—that is the number of those killed under British command on D-Day alone—and it is an extraordinarily moving installation. It has proved immensely popular, with 250,000 visitors to the memorial last year, and I pay tribute to Dan and Janette Barton, who founded the charity and whose inspirational work has been very powerful in many other places as well.
If we can be inclusive, digital and creative, we can ensure that the courage and sacrifice of those who fought for our freedom, including the many referred to in this debate, will never be forgotten.
Relations with Europe
Lord Ricketts Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Ricketts (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as a non-executive director of Eurotunnel, chair of the Franco-British Council and president of the British Normandy Memorial—that is probably enough for now. The choice of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, of the bilateral political relationships was inspired. Like others, I very much look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge; having appeared at the PAC under her chairmanship, I am sure it will be powerful and forensic.
I shall start with two special recent moments in the British relationship with European countries. The first is the visits of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen to Germany and France. The outpouring there of respect and affection for the UK was very moving and a vivid example of how the King exercises real soft power, not least because he is a recognised international leader on climate and environment issues. He is a real national asset. Secondly, I had the great honour of receiving the King and President Macron at the British Normandy Memorial on 6 June to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-day. We commemorated the fallen among the allied troops but also the thousands of French citizens who were killed then. My point here is that bilateral ties with our European neighbours go far beyond government relations. The surface waters have been quite choppy in recent years, although they are calming down now, but the depths were largely unstirred.
I welcome the priority that the Government are giving to restoring the damage done to our bilateral relations during the Brexit years. It is great to see Ministers fanning out across Europe, engaging with partners and working on the big issues of the day. The Prime Minister’s agreement with Chancellor Scholz of Germany for a UK-Germany bilateral co-operation treaty is a case in point. Germany remains Europe’s largest donor to Ukraine and its defence spending is rising, so it is a particularly good time for the defence co-operation agreement that John Healey is pursuing. But commitments to work together are not enough.
If I may, I draw a lesson from the UK-French defence co-operation that we launched at the Lancaster House treaties of 2010. That has led to a step change in co-operation because it was rooted in specific, tangible long-term projects. We are committed for 50 years to use the same facility in Burgundy to virtually test our nuclear warheads. We have a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, which is capable of fighting together. In the energy field, EDF is building a new generation of nuclear power stations—another 50-year commitment. We need a similar level of ambition for our relations with Germany.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, good political relations have to be underpinned by a much broader web of civil society and human links. I am thinking of all the co-operation across Europe in science and research, education, culture and sport, and citizens’ opportunities to live and work together. Most of these are beyond the control of Governments; what Governments can do best is to clear away the obstacles to them. In that spirit, if I may, I shall pepper the Minister with three specific points that I hope he might cover in summing up.
First, can the Government work with other European capitals to try to create more momentum for an agreement with the EU on touring artists? That would be of great benefit to both sides and is strongly supported by all sides in the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.
Secondly, will the Minister ask his colleagues to reconsider the rejection of the commission’s proposal for a youth mobility scheme? It may be that the scheme is flawed, in which case propose a better one. This has nothing to do with free movement; it would be a visa-based scheme, allowing limited duration stays and the number of visas could, if necessary, be capped.
Thirdly, and rapidly, will the Minister discuss with Treasury colleagues the impact that the imposition of VAT on private schools will have on European schools in this country? These are specialist schools preparing pupils in their own language for exams set in their own country, so pupils whose parents cannot afford the VAT cannot move to the state sector. This is one part of the rich web of relations between countries and it deserves looking at in implementation.