Ninetieth Birthday of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

The Duke of Edinburgh is clearly someone who does not take well to compliments, but he will just have to put up with them this week, because quite frankly he deserves those compliments, not just because it is his 90th birthday on Friday, but because for more than 60 years, since their marriage in 1947, he has been the bedrock of support for Her Majesty the Queen—the constant and loyal support and the dutiful and honourable consort, perpetually at her side over the 59 years of her reign so far and, please God, for years to come. He is the longest-living consort in 1,000 years of British history, surpassing, only a couple of years ago, Queen Charlotte, the consort of King George III—but I am reliably informed that that is the only thing he has in common with Queen Charlotte.

The Duke may be 90 years old, but he has something to teach the youngest generations, and that is the principle of duty and service, as we have heard from other hon. Members. Nowadays, many people are accustomed to doing something only if they want to do it and only if it suits them. Many have an expectation of what their rights are, but not of what their responsibilities may be.

Many of the prince’s generation, maturing in the 1940s, understood the importance of doing a thing because it was the right thing to do for someone else, or for the country—but of course that sense of duty is not entirely extinguished today; very far from it. I had the honour of spending two days at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, last week, and I met many young cadets in their 20s and even younger who are very much focused on serving others—a willingness to serve, and certainly not for financial reward. They want to give something back.

The British are a very generous people and give vast sums and amounts of time to charities, and that is reflected in Her Majesty’s Government’s international development policy, but the Duke has done a great deal for this country over generations, as well as supporting the Queen. Not the least of those is the welfare of young children, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said a few minutes ago. The Duke established the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme in 1956, and it has seen more than 7 million work to achieve an award. He meets the gold award winners personally.

The Duke is patron of some 800 organisations and has flown almost 6,000 hours in dozens of aircraft, but he was always what would now be called a type A personality—a leader. At Salem, as a pre-teenage boy in the early 1930s, the Nazis started to creep into school life, but Prince Philip used apparently to break into fits of laughter when he saw them and clearly even then considered them contemptible. Perhaps that is not surprising when one considers that his late mother is honoured in Yad Vashem in Israel as “Righteous Among the Nations”.

The Duke went on to be head boy, or guardian, at school in Gordonstoun. At the Royal Naval college he came top of the class and won the King’s dirk. He captained a warship at an extremely early age during world war two, and he served on battleships and destroyers throughout the second world war, even being mentioned in dispatches. He was involved in the allied invasion of Sicily, and was in Tokyo bay to witness the surrender of the imperial Japanese.

Still carrying out hundreds of public engagements a year at the age of 89, the Duke has given so many speeches that they apparently take up several volumes of shelf space, and he has never done anything that would affect his personal integrity or the integrity of the Crown. It is clear that his grandchildren love and respect him. He has borne the vicious cruelty, at times, of the press in this country with dignity and poise, and he has never once in public life done anything to embarrass Her Majesty the Queen or to weaken the dignity or integrity of the Crown—despite the odd controversial remark.

The Duke should be, and I believe is, a guiding light to others showing the correct way to behave with duty, honour, service and tradition.

Question put and agreed to, nemine contradicente.