Democratic Institutions: Threats

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. I thank him for securing this debate. Democracy is certainly under threat. Some 87% of Britons have either not very much or no trust at all in politicians and 33% sympathise with the view of British political institutions that they should “just let them all burn”. One in five voters—21%—say that political violence is acceptable in some conditions. When you think that we live in the aftermath of two MPs being murdered for doing their job, that is a staggering figure.

Some of this is due to direct political interference by hostile states, which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, talked about. Last year, the director of MI5, Ken McCallum, pointed to a 35% rise in state threat activity and warned that Russian intelligence has been on a mission to generate “sustained mayhem” on British streets. We constantly see the generation of stories from various corners of the world. An example that is still notorious is that, after the terrible murder of three girls in Southport two years ago, an entirely false claim appeared online that the murderer was a Muslim immigrant. This is entirely false, but that claim was viewed more than 4 million times in Britain and across the globe.

Iran’s record is even worse than that of Russia or China. A report earlier this year by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, who is in his place, detailed how Tehran is making a systematic effort to build a soft power structure through the use of charitable organisations—registered charities which are being subverted or even created by proxies. As we have discussed many times, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is regularly using proxies. Its use of proxies is getting worse because less obvious proxies are now being used. Criminal gangs are doing its dirty work. We have just seen a court case in which two men were prosecuted and convicted for the near murder of an Iranian journalist working in London.

The All-Party Group on Counter Extremism, which I am a member of, has recommended steps, including a new directorate across Whitehall aimed at preventing democratic decline. There are other recommendations in the report by the All-Party Group that I have not got time to cover but which are all well worth looking at. I add that the Charity Commission should be far quicker and far sharper at investigating dodgy charities with links to Tehran in particular, and to China, Russia and other states. A list should also be established of charities found to have links to hostile states or their proxies. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has presented this idea a number of times in this Chamber. It is well worth thinking about.

I have raised again and again—I used to raise in the other place when I was a Member of Parliament—that we should have the full proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Government after Government, going back to 1979, have failed to act on it. Many of us have seen Ministers here and in the other place come to the Dispatch Box very sympathetic towards an outright ban of the IRGC. Somehow, that sympathy gets lost in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the ban gets blocked. We have legislation going through both Houses of Parliament to create the legal framework allowing this Government or a future Government to proscribe the IRGC. However, it would then take the political will of a serving Minister to say, “We’re going to take action and proscribe the IRGC”.

I have talked almost entirely about the influence of hostile states and their proxies. However, I will also say something about the threat to our democratic institutions from within democratic institutions. Many of us heard Lord Hennessy’s valedictory speech a few weeks ago in this Chamber. He was the first person to present, in the language of a few decades ago, the “good chaps” theory of the British constitution—that politicians, civil servants and others are largely men and women of good will, intelligence and capability. Largely, that theory still holds true.

However, we are now seeing the rise of elements in the British constitution and politics that were not there when Peter Hennessy wrote his outstanding books about the British constitution. For example, at the other end of the Corridor, in the other place, we have a group of five Gaza independents—for want of a better phrase—who were elected on a purely sectarian basis. Their appeal is purely sectarian. We have not had that in living memory and, in my view, that is a threat to democracy. One of them led a campaign, which he has boasted about, that aimed to make Britain’s second city a no-go zone for Jews when Maccabi Tel Aviv was playing a football match in Birmingham. Sadly, that campaign was successful, and that is a tragedy.

We have always had scandals in British politics—Suez, Marconi and Profumo spring to mind. What seems to have changed is that the scandals come thicker and faster, these days. At the moment, we are still living through the Mandelson and McSweeney scandal, which still has some way to run. Before that, a previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, insisted on staying in Downing Street when the Government had, in effect, ceased to function, because so many Ministers, including some in the Cabinet, had resigned. Before then, we had a period when the leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, refused to leave, despite an overwhelming vote of no confidence, which, in effect, meant that the Opposition ceased to function.

Having taken all that in the balance, I suspect that the British constitution will prevail because the checks and balances are there. But it is not a foregone conclusion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to protect public institutions and services from cyber threats.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to protect public institutions and services from cyber threats.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

The cyber threat facing the United Kingdom is intensifying. State and non-state actors have targeted our critical national infrastructure, our businesses and even our democratic institutions. The Government have introduced a new national cyber strategy, which takes a whole-of-society approach. We have set out high standards of cyber-protection for our critical industries and, with the help of our world-leading agencies, we are offering advice to institutions, businesses and individuals on protecting themselves online.

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this issue. We have tremendous strengths in national cyber-security, and there are many relevant institutions around the country. I have visited universities in Wales that are churning out brilliant graduates. We need to do more at secondary school level to encourage more children to get involved in cyber-security, because the demand is only going to increase in the months and years ahead, and I have been engaging with the Education Secretary on precisely this point.

[John Cryer]

We have all seen in recent weeks how weak cyber-security can compromise elected representatives and lead to the extraction of often compromising information. Could the Minister update the House on what he is doing to provide support and technology specifically to elected representatives to make sure that this does not happen in the future?

Next General Election

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I was not expecting to be called quite so early—I thought many more people would be keen to speak in this debate. Thank you for chairing it, Mr Dowd, and I thank the Petitions Committee—particularly the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who led the debate masterfully and covered a huge number of issues and the reasons why petitioners signed the petition.

I first got involved in party politics and joined the SNP in 2001. When we were out canvassing and campaigning, it was not unusual for us to knock on doors and for people to say, “I’m not sure who I’m voting for.” In some circumstances, people were inevitably voting Tory, but they were too shy to tell us because they were embarrassed about it. That was quite a common thing back then—it was quite common for a significant number of years. We then had the Lib Dem-Tory coalition, and there was a bit more optimism around the Conservatives and people were actually willing to admit to us that they were voting Conservative. Well, that has disappeared again. Believe it or not, there are some people in Aberdeen North who vote Conservative—in fact, the Conservatives came second there in the last election. We have all these people who are pretty definitely going to vote Conservative, but they are now too embarrassed to say it, because they are looking at the situation down here in Westminster and they are unwilling to admit that that is the party they are going to vote for.

There are so many issues that it is difficult to pack them all into a short speech, but I will try to cover a few. First, on inflation and household bills, which the hon. Member for Gower covered masterfully, this UK Government have failed to do enough. They stand up and talk about the fact that inflation has dropped, but prices are still going up. We still have inflation. Potatoes, pasta, rice—the most basic foodstuffs, which people cannot avoid buying—have increased massively in price. We cannot avoid buying some of those essentials, and their prices continue to increase. I do not know how often you buy butter or margarine, Mr Dowd, but it is twice the price that it was just a couple of short years ago. Again, that is a staple. People need fats in their diet. We need all sorts of different foods in our diet. If the prices keep going up—and they are, because inflation continues to go up—then things get even worse and people can no longer afford to buy things. That is without the energy prices that people are now paying, and the UK Government’s refusal to provide another energy rebate despite the fact that they know that folk cannot afford to live right now.

I have been in elected politics since 2007 and I have never seen less optimism. Before, when people came to us because they were struggling and had money problems, we could quite often say, “Are you claiming everything that you’re supposed to be claiming?” We could give them advice and give them options. Now, because people are already claiming everything they are entitled to, the only option we can give them is food banks. How have we reached the point in 2024 when the only ray of sunlight for so many families is the fact that they can get a food parcel every so often? It is absolutely unconscionable that we are in this situation, and it is because of the choices being made by the Conservative Government. It just is the case that they could make different choices, which would allow people to eat, heat their homes and feed their children better.

The Government need to reassess social security and ensure that it is enough to live on, because at the moment it is not. The augmentation of universal credit for those on the lowest wages still does not give them enough money to live on, and the UK Government’s pretendy living wage is not enough to live on either. People are working all the hours they can and claiming everything they possibly can—they might be disabled and unable to work—yet they still do not have enough money to live. It is no wonder that people are completely and totally fed up.

Significant parts of the public sector are devolved in Scotland, including the NHS. However, if the UK Government continue to squeeze the public sector by giving it less and less money, and if they continue to privatise parts of the NHS, then, because of the Barnett formula, that will have a significant impact on Scotland’s budget. The Scottish Government cannot borrow in the way that the UK Government can, and they have to deliver a balanced budget every year, yet they are being constrained by choices that are not our own, because of the decision-making processes in Westminster. All those decisions to cut public services in England and Wales, or in England or in the UK as a whole, have a knock-on impact on Scotland’s budgets, and on Wales and Northern Ireland as well.

It is ridiculous that the public sector is being so squeezed that it is struggling to afford to provide even basic services, and neither the NHS nor public sector workloads are helped by the UK Government’s immigration decisions. It is more difficult than ever to get people to work in care, for example, because of the changes being made to immigration. After London, Aberdeen is the city with the highest percentage of people born outside the UK. We have a massive immigrant population in Aberdeen, and we love that; it is brilliant. We have an immensely multicultural, diverse city—I was at a Hindu event on Saturday night. Aberdeen is vibrant because of that, but it is becoming increasingly difficult because of the UK Government’s ideological opposition to immigration.

People in my constituency would rather have care workers to look after them than have immigration stamped out. In Aberdeen, we have got hotels run by Mears that are full of asylum seekers who the UK Government do not allow to work. I mean, for goodness’ sake, allow people to work and contribute to the economy and the society they are living in. It is better for everybody, if they have got an asylum claim in, if they are allowed to work and contribute—if they are allowed to integrate, become part of the community and provide support, and particularly care for our older people.

The other thing that has happened in relation to democracy and trust is that each of the significant number of Conservative Prime Ministers that we have had, one after the other—we could almost say that it might be a ploy—has been able to put a whole bunch of people in the House of Lords and thereby unbalance it even more. If we have five Conservative Prime Ministers in eight years—and who knows how many there might have been by the end of this year—then we get tranches of people sitting in the House of Lords with a Conservative hat on.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Member think of another time when the governing party changed Prime Minister twice during a Parliament without going to the country, because I cannot?

[Kirsty Blackman]

No, I cannot think of such a time either, and it is really shocking that we are in this situation, especially because, as the hon. Member for Gower laid out, the current Prime Minister was not elected by anyone apart from the people in his constituency. He was not even elected by the Conservatives; they did not want him, but they ended up with him as their second choice. The people have not had their say. They have not had the opportunity to say, “Yes, we’re happy with this situation. We’re happy with the former Prime Minister crashing the economy and our mortgage rates going through the roof and the UK refusing to cancel VAT on those mortgage rates.” They have not had the opportunity to say that. I think that they would say, “We’re deeply unhappy and pessimistic about the future. We don’t see that there is a ray of sunshine here, because the system continues to be broken.”

In the last few years, this UK Government have done what they can to erode democracy. They have done what they can to ensure that it is more difficult for people to vote, including introducing voter ID, which we in Scotland vehemently oppose. Actually, if we look at it, we see that it is not the case that there is voter fraud. The requirement for voter ID just means that people who are less privileged and more disadvantaged are less likely to be able to take part in democracy, which suits some Conservatives down to the ground. It is completely shocking that we are in this situation.

I will just mention a couple of other things. Regarding climate change and a just transition, energy prices are going up. The UK Government are putting through the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill to ensure that there is more licensing of oil and gas fields, which will make absolutely no difference to the prices that people pay for their energy. What it will make a difference to is the profits of those energy companies—that is where it will make a positive difference. Those companies will have higher profits if they are able to carry out more exploration and have more fields licensed as a result of those explorations. It takes something like 16 years for a field to come through, so licensing more today will not make any difference to the prices that my constituents are paying for their energy.

The Government are doing these things, making these decisions and making statements about climate change, for example about electric cars, in the face of ever-increasing extreme weather events and ever-increasing climate change. The world is not meeting its climate change targets, and if we ask young people what they are concerned about, we find that it is climate change. They are particularly concerned that our political leaders are refusing to concede that climate change is the most important issue and needs to be tackled. The UK Government need to lead from the front but they are absolutely failing to do so. They should be supporting renewable energy—energies of the future—rather than pouring more time and energy into increasing the amount of fossil fuels that we are getting out of the sea.

As for EU membership, we were dragged out of the EU against the will of the people of Scotland, despite being explicitly promised during the Scottish independence referendum that the way to stay part of the EU was to remain part of the UK. So many people in Scotland voted no in the Scottish independence referendum because they felt so strongly about the EU and believed what Better Together campaigners were telling them. Then, immediately after the 2019 general election, we were taken out of the EU, despite every single constituency in Scotland—every single area in Scotland—voting to remain in the EU. We have now left the EU, and that has had a significant negative impact. There has been a ratcheting impact on inflation, for example; leaving the EU has meant that we are more negatively impacted by those issues. The Minister will no doubt say that that is entirely because of global factors, but it is just not; it has been exacerbated extremely by Brexit.

The solution, as put forward in the petition, is to have a general election and allow people to have their say. The reality for people in Scotland is that we have a lifeboat, which we want to take to get us out of here. We have been asking for an independence referendum. We have been making it clear that we are utterly fed up with the Westminster system and the decisions that are being taken down here—even things like the fact that the timing of the general election is entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister, whereas the timing of elections in Scotland is set by statute. They happen on a regular basis—every four or five years. There was a change that needed to take place to realign elections, but they take place on a four-year cycle.

It is grim that we end up in this situation and the UK Government can just say, “No, we don’t want to let them have an independence referendum. It doesn’t matter how many people in Scotland want independence; it’s up to us. We are going to make those decisions on behalf of the people of Scotland,” just as they are making so many other decisions on behalf of the people of Scotland. But the decisions that they are making about immigration, human rights and climate change are not being made in the name of the people of Scotland. We need the chance to take that lifeboat to get out of here so that we can make our own decisions—the right decisions for the people who live and work in Scotland—rather having decisions made by the Westminster Government, whoever it is that they are making those decisions for, because they certainly are not making them for the benefit of the general population.

Tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Like you, Mr Speaker, I met Tony about 30 years ago in the run-up to the 1997 general election. I thought then, and have continued to think ever since, what a tolerant and restrained man he was, even when he felt strongly. I have to say I was not particularly tolerant or restrained in those days; I would like to think I learned something from Tony—I think I did over the years.

Those qualities stood him in great stead when he became chair of the parliamentary Labour party. He took over at a time when the tensions—I am being slightly euphemistic—between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were at their sharpest. He was able to guide the PLP through that period.

It is extraordinary to think that when Tony came into this place, Michael Foot was leader of the Labour party. I think I am right that he served under nine Labour leaders. On longevity, I remember Tony telling me many years ago that as a young boy, he saw the Busby babes play, with the great Duncan Edwards. He must have been one of the last people still alive who could say that they saw Manchester United before the Munich crash.

In conclusion, Tony’s tolerance and restraint were an exemplar. There are an awful lot of people—not just in here, but outside as well—who could usefully learn a few lessons from Tony.

Action Against Houthi Maritime Attacks

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As my right hon. Friend can see, we will always back up our words with action. We have been clear that we will not tolerate risk to innocent lives and British interests in the region. We will take action where necessary in a limited and proportionate way, in compliance with international law and in self-defence. That is what we did last week and what we have done this week, and we will always reserve the right to do so in order to protect British lives and interests.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

It is clear that the “Partisans of God”—the Houthi militia—are fascist and racist. They are backed by fascists and racists in Tehran. Further to earlier questions—this has been asked time and again from both sides of the House—may I ask when we will get around to fully proscribing the IRGC?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said previously, we do not routinely comment on groups that we may or may not be considering for proscription, but we have taken significant action against the IRGC, including sanctioning them in their entirety and passing new laws here at home to make sure that we can protect ourselves. Critically, we are working with our allies so that we can jointly determine what is the most effective way to combat the risk that Iran poses to us.

Pakistan: Evacuation of Afghans

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I completely recognise my hon. Friend’s passion in this space, but I have to be disciplined about what is in my remit and what is not. That is a question for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and I know that it is engaged on that issue. The Foreign Secretary will have heard his question today. If not, I will make sure that he has seen those remarks and that my hon. Friend gets an answer.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I am assuming from what the Minister is saying that, since this egregious change in policy, he and his colleagues in Government are having regular discussions with the Government in Pakistan. During those discussions, have he and others sought any assurances that people in Pakistan who have live applications to come to Britain will not be deported back to Afghanistan?

[Johnny Mercer]

The entire strategic objective that we are trying to achieve is to make sure that those who are entitled to be in the UK, who have served with UK forces, who are part of the ACRS pathway and who are part of the cohort that we are talking about are not deported back to Afghanistan. We are working night and day to get those assurances. I am determined that we will get them and that we will look after those people properly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I do not know the facts of that case. If the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me, I will make inquiries to the extent that I am able to do so.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

In answer to Question 11, asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), what the Minister seemed to say was that he was willing to assess the racial disparities in joint enterprise prosecutions once the data was available, which it is not at present but which it will be in the near future. Am I right to draw that conclusion?

[Mike Freer]

What I said was that the issue was complex, and that I would be happy to sit down with the hon. Member for Edmonton to go through the exact details and the exact concerns, rather than addressing such a sensitive issue across the Dispatch Box, so that we could have a meaningful discussion and see whether we could find a way forward to resolve the underlying issues.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Unlike probably every previous speaker, I met the Queen only once. Appropriately enough, it was when she visited the Queen’s theatre in Hornchurch, my then constituency. When she left, she went on to go from strength to strength, as she always did; I went on to be ejected from Parliament by the voters at the following election, so we had slightly different experiences after her visit.

As the leader of the Liberal Democrats says, it is difficult to imagine a world without the Queen. That is absolutely true, but it is worth remembering something that is very rarely remembered: in 1936, after the abdication crisis, the monarchy teetered on the brink. According to most polls at the time, most British voters thought that the monarchy might not survive for very long, but since 1945 the monarchy has been the most popular institution in Britain and has polled at something like 80%. There is no institution that has polled at anything like that level of popularity over such a sustained period. That is not an accident. It happened for two reasons: because the Queen and her father, George VI, had an iron dedication to public service—which possibly started in the most spectacular way when he decided to remain in London during the war instead of following the advice to leave London and go elsewhere, perhaps even to Canada, as one adviser suggested—and because both George VI and Elizabeth II had an absolutely clear understanding of the constitutional parameters of the role of the monarchy, and neither ever strayed outside that role.

Despite repeated attempts to pull the Queen into political controversies—the first one that I remember was when we had a hung Parliament in 1974, and article after article in the press said that the Queen should intervene and pull together the two big parties, or perhaps the three big parties, to form some sort of coalition Government—she refused to do it, and she was absolutely right. She was persistent in that all the way through. That is her great legacy: the monarchy has survived as a popular institution because she observed those absolutely correct constitutional parameters.

I think we all hope that if the new King observes those parameters, as I am sure he will, and has that dedication to public service, which he has already demonstrated, he can reunite and draw together a nation that is as bitterly divided as I can remember.

Functioning of Government

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I will do as my hon. Friend says. I commend her for her championing of this very important area. The rape review and the work thereof should of course continue.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

There have been times occasionally when Prime Ministers have been temporarily incapacitated. There has never been a period in British history where a Government have been incapacitated across every Department of State. We have just heard how the secret services are being undermined by the current situation, putting national security at risk. At what point are the Government going to actually start functioning again?

[Michael Ellis]

The Government are functioning. I have already mentioned to the House that the great offices of state are still in place. The hon. Gentleman refers to our security and intelligence services. The Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary are in place.

Speaker’s Statement

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

Jack made a big impression as soon as he was elected to this place in 2010 and was appointed to the Front Bench straight away. I was a rookie Minister and he was my shadow. It was a forbidding prospect because Jack came with such a reputation, as the Leader of the Opposition attested, as one of the big trade union leaders of his day, used to rallying mass meetings and getting his own way. It was with a little trepidation that I committed myself to going head-to-head with him for many weeks in Committee for what became the Localism Act 2011.

However, I was quickly to discover that Jack’s success was based, as evidenced today, on his charm, persuasion and forensic mind. He had a tremendous impact as we spent those many weeks together. In fact, so persuasive was Jack’s oratory and work in Committee that, much to the Whip’s consternation, he incited my first rebellion—as the Minister taking the Bill through Committee! [Laughter.] His remarks were so persuasive that I could find no argument against his amendment and declared that I would accept it, and we did, despite the fact, as former and current Ministers will know, that my speaking notes had “RESIST” in bold type. It is objective to say that Jack’s powers were simply, literally, irresistible.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) attested to Jack’s brilliant work in forging alliances irrespective of party. He mentioned the work that Jack did with our former right hon. Friend Dame Caroline Spelman, his constituency neighbour. They stood up in particular for manufacturing industry interests that created jobs in their constituencies and across the west midlands. That joint work was vital during turbulent times; when investment decisions were being considered, showing the unity of purpose of the local MPs projected nationally was very important.

Jack’s lifetime of knowledge, experience and passion for manufacturing industry made him an authority, carrying universal respect and the confidence of employers creating jobs. I was therefore honoured when Jack asked me, after Caroline stepped down at the last election, to continue that partnership with him. We met regularly with businesses and trade union leaders, not only in his beloved automotive sector, but in aerospace, chemicals, life sciences and food and drink. He is greatly missed by the leaders of those sectors.

Ministers from the Front Bench and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), as well as the Prime Minister, have attested to what an effective advocate Jack was. He achieved what he did through kindness, enthusiasm, optimism and encouragement, but not without drawing on his trade union skills of organisation and tenacity. His achievements and how he won them made him respected across this House and across the country. He represents, as does the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the very best of this House.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I will start by saying how great it is to see the Mother of the House, our inspiration, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), in the Chamber today, and her family. I knew Jack for years and years; I could probably speak for the next two hours about all the campaigns we worked on together, first as Transport and General Workers Union officers and then as MPs elected to Parliament at the same time.

There are a couple of campaigns that I will talk about particularly. The first, which many people in this Chamber will remember, was when Kraft took over Cadbury. Seven factories were taken over by Kraft, and Jack led the trade union campaign to protect their jobs—a very successful campaign, by the way. As part of that campaign, which I got involved in at Jack’s behest, we went to see the then Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson.

Before the meeting—this is just the sort of thing Jack would do—he discovered that Peter’s favourite chocolate was fruit and nut, so we got a cardboard box roughly the size of Westminster Abbey and filled it with Cadburys Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut before having a very constructive and successful meeting—I wonder why it was so constructive and successful? I must add that I remember saying to Jack before we went in, “Jack, Peter’s quite a lean sort of bloke. He obviously looks after himself. Do you think some of that chocolate might be surplus to requirement?” So by the time we got into the meeting the box was a bit lighter than had originally been the case.

The second campaign, which again was successful—even more successful, actually—was one that is largely forgotten now, involving S&A Foods. I ask hon. Members to bear in mind the name, because that will be important. S&A Foods was a big agricultural combine, largely producing strawberries, about 30% of the British strawberry market. Its workers were largely migrants and very badly exploited. It was a big workforce: I am talking 4,000 to 5,000 people working on the land in the west country picking strawberries, but just for three months a year, and being very badly treated.

Jack got involved in that campaign and, as he always did, threw everything at it. He worked his heart out on getting recognition, getting better terms and conditions and improving the lives of those thousands of people working on the land. That became quite a big deal at the time, and I remember Jack and I going to a meeting of Transport and General Workers Union members and officers afterwards.

Jack always had about 50 things going on in his brain at the same time—that was just the way he was—so as he rose to speak to the members, he was not really concentrating on his words. He opened his speech by saying, “Right, what I want to talk to you about now is S&M”, and I could see the faces of all these pretty traditional—for those who knew the T&G—trade unionists faces dropping, going, “What!”. I was nudging Jack, saying, “Jack, it’s S&A, not S&M—that’s something entirely different.” I think.

As I said at the beginning, I could talk at great length about all the campaigns I did together with Jack. He was always an inspiration. He always led from the front, and he was very largely successful. He was one of the most successful trade union officers industrially in the past 50 or 60 years, or something like that, and often in difficult conditions. Jack had one overriding aim, and that was to improve the conditions and the lives of the people he and we represented. In that, I think he was successful, and in that, I think he left the world better than he found it.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I do not remember the first time I met Jack, but that is probably because when I did, I walked away feeling like I had known him forever. He was gentle, sweet and naturally mindful—by which I mean that, unlike some colleagues, his eyes were not darting around to see if there was someone more interesting or important to speak to. If you had his attention, you held his attention.

To me, he was always so kind. He never defined me by my politics or my football team, but as a person. He always asked about my family and, whenever we had a conversation about my son Freddie, he would regale me with tales and the occasional picture of his grandchildren, accompanied by a beaming smile and sparkling eyes. His adoration of his family was clear to see.

Jack was exceptionally polite. Like a child who can spot an ice cream shop from a mile away, Jack it seems could spot a colleague who needed a confidence boost. He always had a word of praise for anyone downhearted about their performance in this place—a cheeky, “Well done”, a smile as he sat down, a kind tribute in his own comments. He was quite simply a lovely colleague.

I am sure he was prone to arguing with the sat-nav or left his shoes in a perilously dangerous place, but from the outside he looked like a pretty perfect husband, one who loyally and lovingly supported his wife at a time when Parliament was even more challenging for women that it is today. I hope that most of us think that we have a Jack at home, but I still reckon that he could have made a fortune giving consultancy on how to be the long-suffering but supportive male other half. This House has lost someone special, but my heart does not break for us; it breaks for the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and his three children and grandchildren. As I sit down, I remember his warmth and gentleness. I send my love to them today.