His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

In adding my words of tribute to His Royal Highness and my condolences to the royal family and to Her Majesty the Queen, for myself and on behalf of my constituents, I am led to reflect that my parents were married in the same year as Her Majesty and His Royal Highness, and that my father had also served in the Royal Navy. For many of their generation, that royal wedding was a sign of optimism, of a lightening of dark clouds after the second war, and of hope. That was then borne out by the lifetime of service that Her Majesty and His Royal Highness gave to this country thereafter.

Of course, His Royal Highness’s legacy relates not only to those of my parents’ generation; it runs through his many activities for all generations in this country and beyond. I imagine that every Member of Parliament who has been involved in their local scout groups and youth groups will have seen, as I have as a vice-president of Bromley and District scouts, and as other right hon. and hon. Members have said, the huge benefit and massive enrichment of lives that is given through the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.

The Duke’s interest in innovation, business, enterprise and technology and his well-known directness of speech and dry sense of humour intertwined on the first occasion I had the privilege of meeting him. When I was the member for Romford in the Greater London Council in the final few months of that authority’s existence, His Royal Highness came to present the Queen’s award for industry to a local firm for business and technological innovation. The civic party was lined up at Romford railway station, which must have caused some amusement and interest among the commuters at that time of day. We were all duly introduced, the mayor, the deputy lieutenant, the Member of Parliament and me, as the Greater London Council member, to which His Royal Highness greeted me with the words “Good grief! I thought you’d been abolished.”

I was able to have slightly longer conversations on subsequent occasions, and more than once they turned on the topic of housing. It is sometimes forgotten that His Royal Highness was also an early and strong advocate of the housing sector and of social housing, in which he took a lifelong interest. For many years, he was president of the National Housing Federation. In 1976, he chaired an inquiry for it on rural housing, with a further inquiry in the 1980s on British housing, which did important work in that sector—a further example of the breadth of His Royal Highness’s interests and how he used his position to advance the good of the whole of our society.

Finally, Members will have seen during the gun salutes that salutes were also fired from our overseas territory of Gibraltar. As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar, which I have the honour to be, I thought it worth reflecting on the great affection and warmth with which His Royal Highness is regarded and remembered in Gibraltar, as are Her Majesty and all the royal family. Some hon. Members will have seen the very warm and generous tribute made by the Chief Minister, the hon. Fabian Picardo, QC, MP, and by the Governor. I know that our sister Parliament in Gibraltar will be paying tribute when it next sits. Ironically, in 1950, when His Royal Highness visited the Rock, he opened the building that is now home to the Gibraltar Parliament. The affection and warmth with which he is regarded there is something that will live on, and that legacy extends across the whole of the British family.

The thoughts of all the British family are with Her Majesty, not just as a wife and a consort, but as the mother of children, as well as our Head of State, for the regard in which she is held is so strong in all regards, but also for the sense of loss, which is as important to a family as it is to a monarch.