Business of the House

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Any situation that involves balancing the right of people to assemble and demonstrate peacefully and the right of other people to go about their lawful business will, inevitably, require local police judgment of some sort. There are questions to the Home Secretary on Monday 23 January, which will give the hon. Lady the opportunity to put that point directly to Ministers.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I am saddened to have to inform the House that my constituent, Rolf Noskwith, passed away last week. Not only was Mr Noskwith a distinguished businessman and generous community benefactor, but he worked alongside Alan Turing as a cryptographer at Bletchley Park. His death reminds us that we are rapidly losing the last of this heroic generation. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in expressing our condolences to his widow and family. Will my right hon. Friend investigate the possibility of establishing a permanent memorial here in Parliament to commemorate the pioneering work of the men and women of Bletchley, whose vital contribution undoubtedly shortened the war by at least two years?

[Mr Lidington]

I join my hon. Friend in expressing condolences to Mr Noskwith’s family and friends and to salute the vital and secret work that he and so many other men and women did at Bletchley Park during the second world war. They really are the unsung heroes of that period. My hon. Friend may wish to write formally to the House of Commons Commission about a memorial. She will be reassured to know that the Bletchley Park Trust has reconfigured the museum at Bletchley Park so that it is much more of a memorial than it has sometimes been in the past to the heroic work of those men and women.