HC Deb 20 November 1972 vol 846 cc914-21

3.38 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, congratulating Her Majesty and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of their wedding; expressing the deep gratitude of this House for their contribution to the affairs of the nation and for their unfailing example in public and family life; and conveying every good wish for their continued happiness. A silver wedding is above all an occasion for family congratulation and rejoicing. But the life of our Royal Family, maintained, as Sir Winston Churchill said on the occasion of the Silver Wedding of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, in the full glare of publicity which falls upon exalted personages, touches the hearts and imaginations of millions of people outside as well as within the Commonwealth of which the Queen is the head. The events which make up the chronicle of any family life, when they concern the Queen and her family, engage the interest and sympathy of all her peoples. All of us are in some measure partners in their griefs and joys.

This is, then, an occasion on which all of us in the House would wish to express not only our humble duty to the Queen but our affectionate congratulations to her and to her husband on achieving 25 years of happily married life.

When Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip were married in November, 1947, they had every right to hope and expect that it would be many years before they were called upon to take on the responsibilities which her accession to the Throne was bound to impose upon them both. In the event, the call to the Throne came suddenly, on a winter's morning in 1952, less than five years after their wedding. For more than 20 years of their married life, the Queen has carried the full burden of the duties of Monarchy and Prince Philip has not only helped the Queen to sustain that burden but has also made his own distinctive contribution to our national life.

The Queen and Prince Philip have not spared themselves in their public duties. They have altered the pattern of those duties to suit the changing circumstances of the time. There is less ceremonial but much more travel, not only in this country but throughout the Commonwealth, and there are many more opportunities for the Queen and Prince Philip to meet people informally. In addition, as I am sure the Leader of the Opposition will be able to confirm, the Queen deals with a wide range of submissions, papers and telegrams sent to her by her Ministers and takes the keenest and closest interest in the conduct of public affairs.

But the background to all this public service, a background without which, indeed, the public duties would be insupportable, is a happy family life with their four children. Those who were in the Abbey this morning and those who watched the service in their homes on television could see for themselves the radiant happiness of the Queen and her family which communicated itself to all of us present and to the whole nation watching.

In our generation, we have been able to share more fully than our predecessors in the private life of the Royal Family, thanks to radio and television. No one who saw the film shown on television a few years ago could doubt the secure basis of mutual affection, understanding and contentment on which that family life is founded.

The charm and the spirit which the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne already demonstrate to a wider world bear witness to the skill and success with which their parents have managed their upbringing, despite all the pressures of public duties upon them.

For 25 years, the Queen and Prince Philip have given themselves with unsparing devotion to the service of the Queen's peoples in this country and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. In this, they have been sustained by the love and the support of their family. I hope that they feel themselves to be rewarded by the admiration and affection in which they are held and which they have so richly earned. Their Silver Wedding provides an opportunity for that admiration and that affection to find expression.

I am sure that the House will be reflecting the feelings and the wishes of the whole country in conveying to the Queen and Prince Philip, by this Address, their congratulations on 25 years of happy married life and their good wishes for the future. I think that it would be appropriate, as well as in accordance with precedent, that this Address should be presented to the Queen by Privy Councillors representing all parties.

3.43 p.m.

Mr. Harold Wilson (Huyton)

I should like, on behalf of the official Opposition, to support the Motion moved by the Prime Minister.

This morning, at the Abbey service to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, this House was represented by you, Mr. Speaker, by the Cabinet and by representatives of the official Opposition and the Liberal Party. At the marriage ceremony 25 years ago, the House was similarly represented. I think that there are very few of us here today who represented the House on this occasion.

Over those 25 years, we have seen the continuing development of closer relations between the Royal Family and the British people, the growing informality in their approaches to the problems of the British people and the identification of the Royal Family in worthy national and world causes and concerns—concerns which are non-controversial as between parties—[An HON. MEMBER: "Like the Common Market."]—but which do gain greatly in their propagation by the support given by leading members of the Royal Family.

One thinks of the Duke of Edinburgh, for example, with his emphasis on environmental questions and problems. Indeed, I pick up the point that the Prime Minister made, about the active part that he and others have played in encouraging better organised business management, including, for example, the emphasis which some of the Royal Family have been able to lay on the quality of industrial design and on consensus relationships between the two sides of industry in the industrial conferences convened by His Royal Highness. These activities include also the problems of Wales, both before and since the investiture of the Prince of Wales.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the hard work done by the Queen in the study of documents and telegrams. Some of this came out in the questioning and evidence before the recent Committee on the Civil List. The right hon. Gentleman will know, as I knew, that an audience of Her Majesty, if the Prime Minister of the day has not fully done his homework and read all his telegrams, can cause a certain embarrassment for the Prime Minister, because he is facing competition.

As the right hon. Gentleman said, and as was said today in the ceremony in Guildhall, the country has had the benefit of seeing a happy Royal Family—indeed, by modern standards, a somewhat numerous Royal Family as a result of what we are celebrating today. As the Lord Mayor said in Guildhall: Families throughout Britain have been able to identify with the unity and happiness of the Royal Family. The nation is a family, and any statesman in this House over the years who has failed to recognise that has failed to recognise the problems that the nation is facing.

Also, as the right hon. Gentleman said—this also came out in the moving speeches that some of us heard at Guildhall and which will be reported, that others may read, by tomorrow—the Queen, in addition to being the Head of State in this country, is the Head of the Commonwealth. No Monarch has ever done as much as Her Majesty in relation to the Commonwealth and the identification of the Royal Family with the Commonwealth.

In an age when, of course, travel has become easier, when the world has become smaller, this has meant that she has been able to travel abroad, not as representing Britain to the countries of the Commonwealth but in her capacity as the Head of State of so many Commonwealth countries and as the Head of the Commonwealth for other Commonwealth countries which have abandoned the monarchical formula.

She has made a reality of the Commonwealth. In the days that we face ahead—again I take up a theme from the Lord Mayor today—it will be her duty as Head of the Commonwealth to assert the reality of the Commonwealth in days when there are so many who are beginning to doubt its value and discount its importance.

I would again like to associate the Opposition with the concluding words of the Motion, that all of us convey to Her Majesty, to the Duke of Edinburgh and to all the Royal Family our every good wish for their continued happiness.

3.49 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

The celebration of any wedding and its anniversaries on the part of any person in these islands is one of the very rare occasions when the world at large can share in the happiness of the main participants. Seldom can this be more so than in the case of the Queen and Prince Philip on the occasion of their Silver Wedding.

It is inevitable that any person in public life lives his marriage under the full glare of publicity, whether a Monarch, a Cabinet Minister, a leading politician or anyone else in public life. Therefore, their marriage, for better or worse, intimately becomes part of the national life.

It is patently clear that, in the present case, the Queen and the Duke have been granted perhaps the most precious gift that can be accorded to any man or woman—a blissfully happy marriage. Therefore, it is a very personal occasion. We are not only recognising that: we also rejoice in the fact that their children, who are wisely sheltered from publicity until they reach maturer years—

Mr. Thomas Swain (Derbyshire, North-East)

And from poverty.

Mr. Thorpe

—each in time have dedicated themselves to the public service in a way which is matched only by the example of their parents.

In this country, constitutionally, the Monarch is the Head of State; but, in a more personal sense, the Royal Family are the permanent leaders of the nation. I believe that it is always dangerous to indulge in superlatives, but I very much doubt whether in the world there is any married couple who are more beloved than the Queen and the Duke.

Mr. Swain

Not in Clay Cross.

Mr. Thorpe

Therefore, today, as we congratulate them on their Silver Wedding Anniversary and wish them many further years of happy married life, the House will send a message not only of loyalty but one which I believe is also of deep affection.

3.51 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

Perhaps the House might not take it amiss if we heard a few minutes of the flip side of the rather tedious, sycophantic and predictable eulogies.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]—to which we have just listened—[HON. MEMBERS: "Sit down."]—from the leaders of the three parties in the House. It has not been laid on as thickly as it was in the other place last Thursday, and for that we can be grateful, I suppose. [HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]

Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)

At least my hon. Friend can read.

Mr. Hamilton

My views on the Monarchy are very well known, and this is no time to repeat them. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] This tolerant House would howl me down if I did so. But I hope that the House will not doubt my sincerity when I extend to the Queen and her husband my own congratulations on this day and express the hope that they and all who are similarly celebrating their Silver Weddings today will enjoy many more years of happy married bliss.

Now I come to the gritty bit of what I have to say. There is little reflection in it on the Queen and Prince Philip. My first criticism is the sordid, greedy commercialisation of the event. The money-grubbing loyalists are busy cashing in on the irrational sentiments worked up on this unusual Royal occasion. One need quote just two or three examples. In the Observer yesterday, "By permission of Her Majesty's Government," we read about the production of a set of silver spoons.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Cannock)

What about your book?

Mr. Hamilton

That is not by permission of Her Majesty's Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "Money-grubber."] We are told that there will be Ten magnificent solid sterling silver spoons of museum quality"— whatever that means— depicting the Queen's Beasts, ranging from the Unicorn of Scotland to the White Greyhound of Richmond, the White Horse of Hanover and the Black Bull of Clarence. The price per set is £200. They are selling like hot cakes in West Fife.

All of us in the House have seen the advertisements for Annigoni's silver and gold plates. Only 2,000 of them are to be issued. The silver ones are £75 apiece; 100 only in gold will be £1,000 apiece. It would be very interesting to find out how many hon. Members have taken advantage of this unique offer, clearly a desire to cater for the masses.

We are a family, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said; but we are two different families. As Private Eye indicated, to prevent repeat orders Annigoni is to be assassinated immediately when the first consignment is sold. I give another example: a set of six Royal Family cameos, a "never before" issue, in gold and silver. If one buys them, there will be two free gifts for each client—a collector's cabinet containing a royal velvet plaque to hold the six cameos and a strut for the plaque so that one can stand it on the mantelpiece. They are going for a song. They are £14 each in silver and £120 each in gold; that is, £84 for the set in silver and £720 a set for the gold. Easy payments are provided for. Even credit cards may be used to purchase these unique cameos. [HON. MEMBERS: "Sit down."] No.

There is not much that the Palace can do about these things. But for the powers that be, the Palace might have stipulated that the profit from such undertakings might be donated to some charity, for instance, to the thalidomide children. If we are a family of compassion, this might have been a very imaginative gesture, not only from the Palace but from the people who are making these colossal profits on this occasion.

Is it so wise, I wonder, to celebrate the event by giving our schoolchildren a day's holiday by a simple wave of the Royal hand? This point is covered by Jill Tweedie in The Guardian this morning. The children themselves might be out in the cold wet streets, with their working mothers wondering what they are up to.

Mr. Cormack

What about ASLEF on Thursday?

Mr. Heffer

What about ASLEF on Thursday, then?

Mr. Hamilton

The answer to that is very simple. On this very day, four local authorities in Scotland are being inquired into because they are disobeying the law on rents. Other people have disobeyed the law. I hope that the rule of law will apply to everyone, without exception. It is as well to remember that On this day—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."]

It seems to a lot of us that the way in which this day has been organised for the Queen lacks imagination.

Mr. Heffer

It has cost me £1 for a parking fee.

Mr. Hamilton

I believe that at this very moment there is a walk around the City, which in itself symbolises much that is wrong in our society and in the institution of Monarchy. I find it very hard to believe that this chore was the Queen's wish. The authorities should have let her choose how she wished to spend this day. As the Prime Minister said, this is uniquely a family event. My right hon. Friend referred to the evidence in front of the Select Committee, and how some of the members of that Committee were appalled by the workload that the Queen is asked to take on. Surely this day could have been an exception, when the family could have got together, could have discussed their relatively minor problems, being among their children, and could have had a nice, friendly chat, without going around among the City tycoons.

Perhaps the House will not misunderstand me if I conclude by expressing the hope that I shall be here when the diamond wedding anniversary celebrations take place. I hope that there will be considerable changes in the institution of the Monarchy and in the sycophancy of the House whenever an operation like this is undertaken by it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, congratulating Her Majesty and His Royal Highnes the Duke of Edinburgh on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of their wedding; expressing the deep gratitude of this House for their contribution to the affairs of the nation and for their unfailing example in public and family life; and conveying every good wish for their continued happiness.

Address to be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.