Tributes: Sir David Amess MP

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Blunkett

Monday 18th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, as time is short, I will not say very much about David. So much has been said already. We both entered the House of Commons on the same day, along with my noble friend Lord Howard. David served for 38 years; I lasted 14 before I was asked to leave.

I am grateful for that in some ways, because I missed the cesspit that is social media. I used Twitter for about three months, but that was as much as I could stand. That is not to say that lots of negative material was directed at me, but social media is a cancer at the heart of our political system. The fact that people can write this stuff anonymously and without being accountable for it is something that needs to change.

David was an exceptional person, but there are many exceptional people at the other end of this building, as there are in this House. The role of an MP is not a job, but a vocation. At this moment, as we think of David’s family, we should think of the sacrifice they have made. There are the endless phone calls on a Sunday afternoon about drains, someone’s views or to say that “You’re not getting your message across”. Those who have been in the House of Commons will be very familiar with those. There are the distractions—the inability to go and see your children play sport and so on. It is a complete way of life and the support which David had from his family is something we should all be profoundly grateful for. That he should be robbed of the joy of retirement and the chance of seeing his children perhaps go on to produce grandchildren is a particularly savage thing to have happened to such a nice man.

I looked at Hansard for this year to see what David had been saying. He spoke on topics from endometriosis to forced adoption, from car charging points to the Maldives fishing industry, from motor neurone disease to night flying, from knife crime to Operation Yewtree, and of course the now celebrated campaigns for city status for Southend and a memorial for Vera Lynn. Both David and Vera were great patriots and supporters of our country and, to echo the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, David was also a fantastic supporter of the union of the United Kingdom.

The launch of the campaign for the statue of Vera Lynn included a song called “Irreplaceable”—how ironic. David is irreplaceable to the people of Southend; he was a one-off—I hope that will not be used by anyone in the by-election campaign. I began to think about which song would be appropriate for David. I thought of Vera Lynn’s “When You Hear Big Ben, You’re Home Again”, but then thought that, with David’s hugely energetic campaigns, it is probably “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”.

David Amess and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, worked tirelessly in support of persecuted Christians around the world. We should honour that by tackling these issues and recognising that it is in all our interests and in our nation’s interests that we support freedom of expression and freedom of religious belief. David Amess was a champion of that.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard wonderful tributes by people who knew Sir David much better than I did, but I want to put on the record very briefly some messages that I picked up from his constituents. Jill Allen-King, aged 82, has written about her guide dog. Most recently, she asked me to write a foreword for her latest book about being blind in lockdown. In that book, she talks about Sir David, and when I phoned her a couple of months ago, she described what a wonderful man he was: attending charitable dos when it would have been a lot easier not to; helping her with fundraising; and being there at the drop of a hat. That was the measure of Sir David Amess.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I remember him from 1992, because two or three days before the Sheffield rally, I went to Basildon to campaign and it was patently obvious then that we had lost. I knocked on doors, and the response was not just about whether people were going to vote for Labour: they were going to vote for David. I went back and reported to headquarters that we were shot. Unfortunately for us, we were.

I say to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, “Yes, we must not let hate succeed”. There is a “Panorama” programme on BBC television tonight, “Why do they hate me so much?” Yes, social media has whipped this up and made it more prevalent and dangerous. However, apart from those who are seriously mentally ill, to whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, referred, we have a phenomenon of hate that is about difference, intolerance and the way in which people can no longer have the dialogue that allows us to speak strongly, think emotionally and believe that our values are worth fighting for, but do so by upholding them in the spirit of democracy. So often now, the hate is about—with Sir David, it certainly was not about the individual—our system, our democracy and the world around us.

One thing that I picked up over the last few weeks about Sir David that is very close to my heart was his engagement with young people learning about politics, citizenship and democracy. If there is one thing that we can carry forward, which I hope will bring comfort to his family and close friends, it is being able to teach our young people how to do democracy, how to be understanding and how to have very strong opinions but express them in a way that is respectful to others as well as to themselves. If that comes out of this and people can have a dialogue across the country about how we could make that work better, Sir David’s life —wonderful as it has been—will also be remembered for making another contribution, like that of Jo Cox, to changing the way in which we do our politics.