Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

On behalf of everybody in the Wirral, particularly in my constituency, I extend our profound condolences to the royal family. We have all lost our Queen, but they have lost a beloved family member, and we hold them in our hearts.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) mentioned, the Queen first came to my constituency in 1957 and visited the famous Port Sunlight village and the Duke of York cottages named after her father. Since then, many in the Wirral have felt strongly about the Queen and have supported all that she has done.

I want to talk, above all else, in favour of the Queen’s constancy. The news of the end Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s reign has felt like the ground we stand on shifting beneath our feet. All that we have known has changed. Down the years, our country has been drawn together in celebration and in sorrow by Her late Majesty and it simply feels impossible to know how to react without her. She had a peerless understanding of the country that we love, hard won through her life, which saw our country’s growth and also its emergence from the darkness of war. Reflecting on what her generation saw, I am in awe of them. They knew not only the pain of loss, but the overwhelming devastation of war.

We have heard so often about that profoundly important visit to Ireland in 2011 and her role as a peacebuilder. The Queen’s example to us all is that of patient constancy, which is, I believe, the best path to change. In her 20s, she said that she could not do what the men before her in her role could do, but that, unlike them, via modern communications, she could broadcast across nations. I think she was a fan of new technology—whether she was speaking to us all from the dawn of television or, as she did recently, speaking to us on Zoom from home during the pandemic, she was a marvel.

In politics, it seems so often that change comes too slowly, and when it does come, we fall back. When it comes to the Queen’s legacy, I ask myself how is it that our country makes progress. I do not think that any individual can make progress by themselves, but rather it comes through our institutions—those institutions that persist when individuals fail. That is what really shifts our country from darkness into light. That is progress, and it is what Her late Majesty made with the constitutional role that was hers. She could always see what the future had on offer, and she built a path for us all.

It has been utterly humbling to hear from leaders across the world, and I trust that that global outpouring brings her family comfort. Our country is not perfect, but in Her late Majesty’s example, we have seen not only the model of service, but the never-ending hope in our future that sprung eternal on these islands through her reign. Long live the King.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Very much like the Prime Minister, I was not raised in a house of monarchists. Yesterday, when the first news came of the Queen’s ill health, I was in the National Security Bill Committee. I was surprised by how deeply affected I felt by the news—I was extremely emotional immediately. It felt like that phone call that almost everybody who has lost somebody close to them gets, that says, “Get here soon. Now is the time.” That made me wonder, “Why do I feel like this?” It is because it feels as if the Queen was a member of every one of our families—even a family like mine. We can project our own life on to hers. No matter how different that life is from the one that the Queen had, her universal experience feels like ours, and she feels like she is with us all.

That made me reflect on all the stories we have all been reading. There is a story for everybody about the Queen’s grace. Anyone—no matter what their political persuasion or religion, and whatever floats their boat—can find a story going around at the moment about the Queen that leads to their bias.

[Alison McGovern]

She was clever like that.

[Jess Phillips]

Yes, she was clever like that. It is an incredible skill, and shows what an icon and a diplomat she was.

You can see the Queen as a traditionalist, you can see her as a modernist, you can see her as somebody with deep faith, you can see her as somebody who represented well people without a faith, but what I have found is that the Queen was a feminist. The brilliant story about the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia being driven quite roughly by the Queen around the Balmoral estate when women in Saudi Arabia were not allowed to drive is one of my top stories. But I saw a story that said:

“When HM Queen came to open the Rolls Building, she was ushered into a room in which were waiting all the judges. She looked at the ermine-clad…ranks of Chancery judges, smiled, and said crisply ‘Where are the women?’ A look of panic crossed multiple faces, until someone saw three female chancery…district judges in a dark corner. ‘There they are!’ he shouted. So the Queen went to talk to them.”

What a woman, what a leader—who, no matter what sort of family they grew up in and no matter in which bit of the world, everybody feels they have a tiny little bit of her with us. God rest the Queen.