Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Lords Chamber

God save the King and his whole family.

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, I arrived as a young boy in the United Kingdom from the Gold Coast in June 1952, as the country was preparing for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Today, 70 years later, we are preparing for her funeral.

I want to acknowledge the Queen’s leadership of and contribution to the Commonwealth, and to Ghana in particular. Ghana was the first British colony to gain independence, in 1957, and it invited the Queen in November 1961. She had been invited before but was pregnant with Princess Anne at the time. It was a time of political turmoil in Ghana, and a bomb had damaged a statue of Kwame Nkrumah. The Queen shrugged off advice to cancel the trip and made a successful tour of Ghana, steadying nerves and ensuring that Ghana, later to become a republic, remained in the Commonwealth.

At the state banquet, Nkrumah toasted the Queen, saying:

“The wind of change blowing through Africa has become a hurricane. Whatever else is blown into the limbo of history, the personal regard and affection which we have for Your Majesty will remain unaffected.”


When the Queen danced with Kwame Nkrumah, it was seen by many as a symbolic moment in the history of the Commonwealth. That visit was instrumental in keeping Ghana within the Commonwealth. The Queen’s admiration for Ghana continued and when President John Kufuor was invited to a state banquet at Buckingham Palace in 2007, I was privileged to be invited, as president of the Royal College of Surgeons.

After the formal dinner, I chanced to have a conversation with the Queen. I began, respectfully, “I suspect, Ma’am, that you have visited most of the countries in the Commonwealth.” She fixed me with a look, and said, “No. All of them.” That put me in my place. However, it was said with a knowing smile which quickly put me at ease—so much so that I was probably the last to leave that evening.

We have heard much today about the Queen’s contribution to these isles, but we should not forget the enormous contribution she made to the Commonwealth, keeping it together and relevant to Britain when others would have had it otherwise. The Queen will be remembered not only for her service to this country but for the service she gave to the Commonwealth.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, there was a conversation that took place many years ago among a group of neighbours. It happened in my grandma’s house, which was in Coronation Road in a mining village in Scotland. The discussion was about the Queen Mother; I think there had been a controversy of some kind in the newspaper. At one point my grandmother, who was part of the conversation, passed the comment, “Well, I don’t know. I only met her the once”. That phrase has passed into my family.

Lots of people have talked today about how they met the Queen, and I have greatly enjoyed the insights and anecdotes. I am different—I think I am glad I never met the Queen, because of a particular incident. Noble Lords will know that in what we will now have to call the King’s Robing Room—it will take us a little while to get around that—there are two brass figurines of the Queen and Prince Philip. Longer-serving Members of the House might remember when the Queen and Prince Philip came to unveil those artworks. For the first time, our then Black Rod did a very insightful and appropriate thing: he invited very long-standing members of staff, some of whom did jobs that were not particularly glamorous and had never really been up in this part of the building, to be part of the event. So it was that Her Majesty asked Peggy, who, longer-serving Members of the House will remember, was the person who ran the Peers’ Guest Room and had done so for more than 30 years, what she did. At that moment, Peggy had no idea; she could not say anything. This was clearly something that happened to the Queen all the time and she said, “I am sure your colleagues admire your work tremendously”, and walked on. If I had met the Queen, I might have found myself in the same position, so I am glad it never happened.

I am also glad to have the opportunity to register the fact that one of the Queen’s greatest achievements was her recognition of people who work for all sorts of charities. She recognised them in all sorts of different ways, not just bestowing honours or being a patron but inviting people who never imagined it would happen to them to go to a garden party and feel like a million dollars for a day. That was truly amazing. As someone who worked in charities, I have to say that it is something she has passed on to the rest of the family. If you are a charity, involvement with the Royal Family is not the easiest of things, because they have the most encyclopaedic historical knowledge of charities—so if you are going to talk to any member of the Royal Family, but particularly the Queen, about your charity, you need to know your stuff. She was a very exacting patron, tremendously thoughtful and I think the most famous member of the Sandringham WI. She knew charities from bottom to top.

Over the past 20 to 30 years, those of us who come from the LGBT community have really appreciated the way in which the Royal Family and Her Majesty have honoured our charities and leaders of our community. It has not always been easy, but the fact that the Royal Family, led by the Queen, King Charles and the Princes, have done that for us, as a somewhat marginalised group, is really important and means a lot to people who, like me, never met the Queen and may never meet a member of the Royal Family. But the fact that they recognise and honour us is very important, and a signal to all the other minority groups in this country that we are all important as her subjects. That is perhaps a little bit of her magic.

I just want to add one indiscretion. I used to work for Age Concern. There was a period of time when it was extremely cold, and there was a great deal of public debate about pensioners not being able to keep warm in the middle of a very cold winter; there were appeals and so on. One particular donation went to pensioners in a very poor part of London on the basis that they should never know who it came from or on what basis it was made. Some wonderful bed sheets and blankets went to people who really needed them. I do not imagine they knew where it came from but, for those of us who did, it told us that she understood charity to its absolute core.

Bahrain

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Ribeiro]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the Government of Bahrain following the arrest of doctors and nurses charged with crimes against the monarchy.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, we are deeply concerned about reports of the severe charges brought against a large number of doctors and nurses by a Bahraini military tribunal. It is essential that medical personnel can treat their patients free from political interference. Our ambassador raised the case with the Bahraini Minister of Justice on 4 May.

[Lord Ribeiro]

I thank my noble friend for his considered response. He has a list of 17 doctors who are currently detained, the majority of whom are surgeons. The accounts of torture and beatings reported in the Independent today confirm that the Government of Bahrain are failing in their duty of care to protect doctors and medical staff. The International Code of Medical Ethics, adopted in 1949 and amended in 2006, states:

“A physician shall give emergency care as a humanitarian duty”.

Will my noble friend join the leaders of the medical profession in condemning the attacks—as he has done, but more forcefully—and in seeking independent monitoring of any future trial?

British Overseas Territories

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro]

My Lords, I rise with all due humility and pride to give my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House. I have learnt much in the weeks since my introduction in December, and I owe a debt of gratitude to my supporters, the noble Lords, Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Patel, and to my mentor, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, for guiding me through what can only be described as a minefield of parliamentary procedure and protocol. The personal attention of the staff has been remarkable, particularly given the heavy workload that they have experienced in the past two months.

My territorial title, Achimota, denotes my birthplace and is also home to a boarding school in Ghana, then the Gold Coast, where my late father taught history and Latin. It was founded in 1924 by three visionaries: the governor, Sir Frederick Guggisberg; the first principal, the Reverend Alexander Fraser; and the assistant to the principal, Dr James Kwegyir Aggrey. They founded the first co-educational school in West Africa and, in doing so, spawned the architects of Ghana’s independence movement, which saw the introduction of self-rule in 1951 and independence in 1957.

The motto of the school, Ut Omnes Unum Sint, meaning “That all may be the same”, is a reference to the abiding philosophy of the founders that, starting in the context of school life, black and white, male and female, should integrate and combine synergistically for the good of all. This is also graphically represented by the symbolised black and white piano keys—the emblem of the school. Dr Aggrey observed that:

“You can play a tune of sorts on the white keys and a tune of sorts on the black keys, but for perfect harmony you must use both”.

This defining principle of harmony has guided me throughout my career and has emboldened me to achieve my aims in life. Such an attitude was uncommon in the British Empire as a whole and yet my father experienced nothing but friendship and support during his degree course at London University before the last war. One of his pupils at Achimota, Major Seth Anthony, became the first native-born African in British military history to be commissioned from Sandhurst in April 1942. Serving with the 81st Division of the Royal West African Frontier Force, he was promoted in the field and awarded an MBE after the Battle of Myohaung in Burma, in January 1945.

Some 374,000 Africans volunteered to serve in the British Army in theatres such as Ethiopia, Somaliland and Burma during World War II and it was a pleasure to discover that the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, had presented Major Anthony with his Burma Star badge, three months before he died in 2008.

My father, like Seth Anthony, was able to serve his country as an ambassador in Africa, Europe and America and, as a young student, I observed how effectively British diplomacy had translated to its newly independent states. Following the “wind of change” which passed across Africa, Britain is now left with 14 overseas territories which, as we have heard, fall roughly into three categories: military bases, areas of biodiversity and financial interests. Within the military context, the strategic defence and security review appropriately entitled, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, gives an undertaking to defend the UK and its overseas territories. It goes further, stating that Britain requires,

“an independent ability to defend the Overseas Territories militarily”.

I hope events over the past few weeks in North Africa have not reduced our resolve to defend these territories from opportunistic attack.

In the 1850s, Herman Melville, in his book Moby Dick, described a real event of a giant sperm whale which attacked and capsized the whale-ship “Essex”. Some of the survivors landed on Henderson Island in the Pitcairn group of islands in the Pacific, no doubt accompanied by a cargo of rats. This Government are to be congratulated on meeting the challenge of eradicating the rats from Henderson Island in order to protect the eggs and the chicks of the native birds, in particular the petrel bird, some 25,000 of whose eggs are eaten each year by the rats, representing 95 per cent of their population. Protecting the bird life of these and other islands in the overseas territories is essential to maintain biodiversity, and despite cuts in the public sector, the UK Government have found £413,000 to support a £1.7 million project by the RSPB to remove Polynesian rats from the island.

We have heard mention of financial services. It is interesting to note that the legacy of a tax-free zone, promised by King George III to the Cayman Islanders, has provided a tax haven in the Caribbean, which has benefited many, but not always the indigenous islanders, many of whom came originally from Africa. As a child of the empire and an African, I have some sympathy for the citizens of the Turks and Caicos Islands, the majority of whose population are of African decent, and who, having tasted a period of self-rule, find that elections promised for July 2011 are now postponed, with no date set for further elections. What steps will the UK Government take to ensure that the loan guarantees made to the islands will lead to the announcement of elections in the foreseeable future?

In his Ministerial Statement of 9 December 2010, my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford referred to the milestones that had to be met before progress could be made. One of these was the reform of the public services. If any lessons are to be learnt from the transition from self-rule to independence experienced by Ghana and other former colonies, it is that time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted. Similarly a sound educational base is needed to provide the infrastructure to support a transition to self-governance. My father used to say to us as children that the most important gift that an African child could have was a good education, and ensuring that this is in place across the islands will encourage the next generation of leaders.

A Pathé News clip—I am sure noble Lords remember them—of the Gold Coast elections in 1951 said of Dr Nkrumah's party:

“They have caused trouble in the past; will power breed in them a sense of responsibility?”.

Sixty years on, one may ask the same question of the Turks and Caicos Islands, although in slightly more diplomatic language.

I very much hope that the UK Government will continue to meet their obligations to the overseas territories and support self-governance and independence for those who wish it. I look forward to making further contributions to this House and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for initiating this debate.