Address to Her Majesty: Platinum Jubilee

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Baroness May of Maidenhead

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

It is indeed a privilege to rise to pay tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on her platinum jubilee, on behalf of myself and my Maidenhead constituents.

Seventy years on the throne is a remarkable achievement. During each and every one of those years, what has shone through has been Her Majesty’s utter dedication to duty, her selflessness and her great love of country. She has served with dignity and grace through not only what have been some very remarkable changing times, but through some difficult years for her family. As has already been referred to, she has seen Prime Ministers come and go. I was No. 13. [Laughter.] But I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when I say that she has greeted us all with charm and consideration, and with an impressive knowledge and understanding of the issues of the day. For all those 70 years, Her Majesty has been a rock for the nation, a point of stability around which the changing tides of history have swirled. Her commitment to service has been remarkable, and it should be an example and an inspiration to us all.

Most people see Her Majesty when she is on her official duties and do not see what goes on behind the scenes. I was pleased when, on the date of her platinum jubilee in February, the palace released photos of her with her private secretary going through her red box, which she does assiduously, but which is a part of her work of which few people are aware.

When the Queen is out and about on her official duties and people meet her, their joy and delight in seeing the Queen is obvious. That goes beyond our shores, as we have seen from her overseas visits, and I saw a little example of that when we hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting here in 2018. The Queen allowed us, very kindly, to meet at Windsor castle. There was a reception before the lunch and I was told that the Queen would turn up to it, but nobody else knew. The minute that she walked into the room, heads turned. There was a palpable sense of delight throughout the entire room and people started to queue up to make sure that they had the opportunity to speak to Her Majesty. We should particularly thank Her Majesty for all that she has done for the Commonwealth and for her great love of the Commonwealth. The strength and growth of that network of nations has been made all the more possible by the fact that she has been at its head.

Aside from official duties, I have also had the opportunity to see Her Majesty in more relaxed times; I speak particularly of the Prime Minister’s weekends at Balmoral. Her Majesty’s great desire for all her guests to be relaxed and enjoy themselves was absolutely clear. She takes great care to put people at ease and to ensure that they are enjoying the benefits of the beautiful Scottish countryside. During the time at Balmoral, I also saw Her Majesty’s great love and understanding of the countryside. She was driving us to a place where we were going to have one of the famous evening barbecues. There was a gate in the track, and in front of the gate stood a very large stag. Her Majesty slammed on the brakes and said, “What is he doing here?” To most drivers, that would have meant, “Why is he in my way?”, but not to Her Majesty. As she explained, she knew that the deer should be on a different part of the hillside. She could not understand why he had come down so low. She knew the countryside; she knew its animals.

The Queen’s love of gardens is clear, and her joy in being able to go to the Chelsea flower show this year could be seen by all. Her love of horses, which has also been referred to, was clear when she was able to attend the last evening of the Royal Windsor horse show. There was a particularly poignant moment when Lady Louise Windsor entered the arena driving the carriage of the late Duke of Edinburgh.

Her Majesty has been a constant presence in our lives. She is respected across the world. She has been steadfast in her selflessness, in her dedication to duty, in her commitment to her country. For 70 years, she has dedicated her life to service of her country and her people, and for that, from the bottom of our hearts, we say simply: Ma’am, thank you, and God save the Queen.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I commend the right hon. Lady on her platinum jubilee purple. If we had thought, it could have been made compulsory. Perhaps on another day.

Aviation Sector

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Baroness May of Maidenhead

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), to his place. In one sense, I welcome this debate, because it gives an opportunity for us all across the House to point out how important the aviation sector is to our economy, to jobs and, indeed, to global Britain. In another sense, I am rather sorry that we are having to have this debate, because it suggests that the Government have not quite yet got the message about the importance of the aviation sector.



Before I come to my main point, I wish to pick up on one of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), who referred to the British Airways situation. I have constituents affected by the British Airways decisions, about which I have had concerns that I have raised with the company, but I also have constituents who will be losing jobs at other airlines and at Heathrow airport itself. That is an impact of the rapid reduction in the number of people who are flying around the world. The best way to ensure that those people have jobs and to support those jobs is to get planes flying again. I welcome the fact that the Government have introduced the air bridges—that was a positive move—but I fear that the air bridges have increased not certainty but uncertainty for people, because of the constant changes that have taken place, sometimes within 24 hours.

Although I have some concerns about the air bridge policy, I wish to focus on testing, and I welcome what the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) said about the importance of testing. First, let me set out the background. This is an important point: stopping people flying into the UK is not going to mean that there is no virus here in the UK—the virus is here; we are going to continue to have cases of covid and will have more cases in the coming months—but it does mean job losses and a negative impact on our economy. Passenger numbers at Heathrow have fallen by 82% and cargo is down 35%. It is reckoned that for every 1,000 passengers, one job is created. The fewer passengers, the fewer jobs. Cargo is also important, particularly for the UK as we are looking to improve our trading relationships around the world, and a lot of cargo is carried on passenger flights.

Sadly, there are those who say that if we want to promote testing and therefore reduce quarantine and increase the number of flights, we are putting public health at risk and putting the economy first. This is not an either/or situation; it is about assessing the proportionate risks. It is about mitigating the risk of people coming into the UK with the virus while at the same time reducing the risk of a damaging impact on the economy. I am certain that testing has to be the way forward in the foreseeable future, but at the moment airports are not even permitted to trial tests on passengers.

It is incredibly important that, far from leading the world, the UK is lagging behind. Japan has been testing since April, and Germany, France, Austria and Iceland all have testing, which variously reduces the quarantine period or means that people can abandon it. In all, 30 countries have testing facilities at their airports. British companies, with their ingenuity, have been developing new rapid tests—TravelSafe Systems recently demonstrated one to me in a GP surgery in my constituency. The infrastructure is there and the testing capability is there and being advanced as we speak.

Crucially, trials would provide data. Currently, decisions are taken on the basis of modelling, which has not proved itself to be infallible during this pandemic. Real data would be much a better basis for making decisions. The Government’s position currently appears to be that if there is a risk with testing that one person has a false negative, we cannot test anybody. That is a counsel of perfection and it is wrong. We have to see testing introduced in our airports. We are talking about not a single test to abandon all quarantine, but possibly a test on arrival and a test a few days later to reduce the quarantine period.

I am sorry that the Minister finds himself responding to this debate, because I think the DFT gets this, so my message is to No. 10, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care, and it is a simple one: if we want to get the economy moving, and if we want to get planes flying again, give airports permission to trial tests. Stop the UK dragging its feet; let us lead the world and set the standard to restore world travel and world trade.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I have to reduce the time limit to three minutes.