Tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd

Ed Davey Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I hope these heartfelt tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd are a source of comfort to his family. I say to them that those of us who were lucky enough to know him for a little while knew him to be an absolutely lovely man: kind, and respected in all parts of the House. You should be really proud of him.

I say to the Labour family that I know he was an integral part of the Labour party for so many years and I know you are proud of him, and justifiably so. He stood up for Labour party principles and his own principles as an individual MP representing his constituency.

I have spoken to Liberal Democrat colleagues in Manchester who remember Tony as the sort of person who would reach out to other parties to make sure that the people of Manchester were the prime objective in the work that politicians of all parties were trying to do. It was no surprise that he decided to leave this House to go and be the police and crime commissioner, where he served with real distinction to try to make the lives of everyone in Manchester better. He was a Mancunian at his heart, as we heard from the former leader of the council, the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer).

I also remember Tony as a strong internationalist; that was a real theme in the work that he did. In his last speech in this House, he was supporting and standing up for the universal declaration of human rights. He voted against the Iraq war. He was an internationalist and put his beliefs into what he did.

My personal experience of Sir Tony from listening to him in this House was that his calm, thoughtful and respectful interventions were often heard in silence because people wanted to hear what he had to say. My particular remembrance is from a cross-party visit to Israel and Palestine in 2009. We went to towns in southern Israel such as Ashkelon, and we went to the west bank and Gaza. We were at the border crossing in Gaza and were not being let in; it was a prearranged trip, but we were not being allowed in and we were there for several hours. We rang the British ambassador; that did not work. But Tony had the idea of ringing the BBC, and within an hour the BBC was reporting that a cross-party group of British MPs was not being allowed into Gaza, and it was amazing how quickly we were allowed in. That showed the measure of Tony: a principled pragmatist, getting through issues, understanding how things worked. My advice to colleagues is when going on foreign trips, always take a former Foreign Office Minister with you, because that comes in quite handy.

We will not forget him; no one who met him—whether constituents, Members of this House or, frankly, anyone around the world who met him—will ever forget Tony. He will live in our hearts and memories.