Valedictory Debate

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

It is indeed a great pleasure to follow the speech of the Mother of the House, who has a longer record in this Chamber than I do. I pay tribute, in particular, to the way she has championed the cause of women in this place, and women’s issues more generally, throughout her time in the House. It has been a pleasure latterly—perhaps in our early days we did not work together quite so well—to champion those issues together.

While I am talking about women in this House, may I take this opportunity to say to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the Chairman of Ways and Means, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing), what a pleasure it has been to have you both in that Chair, and to thank you for the good humour and kindness—but also firmness when necessary—with which you have dealt with our proceedings? I wish you both all the very best for the future.

I would like to give a few more thanks before coming to some remarks to be made before the Dissolution of Parliament. First, I want to thank my Maidenhead constituents, who at seven general elections over 27 years have elected me as their Member of Parliament. I have always put great store by the relationship between a Member of Parliament and their constituents, and I consider my Maidenhead constituents to be the best of British. They are hard-working, they are entrepreneurial and they are compassionate. In all my 27 years, I have been struck by the enormous effort that they have put into helping others and the voluntary work they do around the constituency. I have been delighted to represent this magnificent constituency. I will be the only Member of Parliament for the constituency, because I was the first and the boundaries are now changing, so there we are—that is my place in history.

I also thank my Maidenhead Conservative association, including all the officers over time and all the activists. We all know how those who deliver the leaflets, knock on the doors and raise the funds are an important part of our democracy and our politics. I also join the Mother of the House in thanking the House of Commons staff, both those who are seen and the many who are unseen and unheard. I thank in particular the police and security staff who keep us safe. It was brought home to us on the sad day of the Westminster Bridge attack, when PC Keith Palmer lost his life, that there are those who are willing to put themselves forward to ensure that we can be safe and that this Parliament and this part of our democracy can continue.

I would like to thank my staff in my office, of whom I have had a number over the years. Currently, they are Cameron Bradbury, Ryan Loveridge, Emma Willis and, in particular, Jenny Sharkey, who has been with me for 23 years, through all the thicks and thins of my time in Parliament. I say a huge thank you to them. Most members of the public do not realise the enormous job that the staff of Members of Parliament do, and the significance of their role, but we owe them a great debt.

My final thanks, before moving on to other comments, are to somebody I think I should describe as my best canvasser-in-chief—he is quite a good leaflet deliverer as well—who has been alongside me and supported me for every one of those 27 years in this place, and for my time standing beforehand and as a councillor in the London borough of Merton, who was also there when I was Prime Minister, in the evenings, when he had to make the beans on toast and pour the whisky when the day had not gone quite as well as I had expected. That, of course, is my husband Philip. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

It will be a great wrench to leave this place. I wanted to be a Conservative Member of Parliament from the age of about 12. I was always a Conservative; I have never been a member of another party. I have always been a Conservative in the room, and I will continue to be a Conservative in the room. Being in this place is a huge privilege, but it also brings with it significant responsibilities, and I want to take a serious moment to comment on some of those responsibilities.

Our responsibility, first of all, is to democracy. Democracy has raised living standards and led to the betterment of people in so many parts of the world. But sadly, democracy today, I fear, is under threat. While it is easy to answer the question, “What is the greatest threat to democracy?” by saying, “Well, an autocratic state like Russia or China,” actually, we should never forget the dangers to democracy from within. The most recent United Nations human development report showed that, for the first time ever, more than half the global population support leaders who may undermine democracy. There is polling evidence that an increasing proportion of young people do not think democracy is the way to run a Government.

We, in this mother of Parliaments, should do all that we can to show the value and importance of democracy, because it is democracy that enables people to have the freedom, to be the best they can be, and to do what they want to do, rather than what the state tells them they must do. So we have a real job, both politicians continuing in this House and politicians leaving, to ensure that we do everything we can to maintain democracy. Sadly, we saw in 2021, in the 6 January attack on the Capitol—that great bastion of democracy—that our democracy is actually more fragile than we had thought over the years. So I urge everybody to champion that cause.

This place is also important because it enables us to be a voice for the voiceless. Earlier this week I was able, as were a number of Members of the House, to attend the funeral of the late Frank Field. He was a man who spent his life in this place giving voice to the voiceless, ensuring that truth was told to power, and we should never shy from doing that. It is important, powerful as this place is, and powerful as they may feel they are, that MPs should always recognise there are those who do not have that power. MPs should be there for everybody and should give that voice to the voiceless. There has been work on a number of issues across the House to do just that over the years, and I am pleased to have been able to help in some of that work.

My final comment about responsibility is about the job of being a Member of Parliament. I think it is the best job in the world. Of course, it has its frustrations. It particularly has its frustrations when you are in government and people, on your own side, do not vote for your legislation. [Laughter.] Three times! But there we are. We get over these things, we carry on and we come back. But it is a really important job, and the key to it is to represent constituents. I worry—I have said this elsewhere, and I will say it here in this Chamber—that too many people in politics today think that it is about them, their ambitions, their careers, and not about the people they serve. Being a Member of Parliament is a public service. We are here to serve our country and our constituents.

I have enjoyed my time—although, as I have indicated, it has had its up and downs. I spent 13 years in opposition, and I say to all Members on the Conservative Benches: “You do not want to do that. Go out there and fight to ensure that a Conservative Government are re-elected.”

I wish all the very best to my successor in the new Maidenhead constituency, and to all those who return to this Chamber after the election. I ask only that they remember the importance of our democracy, that they can be a voice for the voiceless, and that their job here is not to advance themselves but to serve the people who elected them.