Speaker’s Statement
Debate between Graham Brady and Sarah Olney
Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity to pay tribute to a great friend, Dame Cheryl Gillan, and to the former Members who have sadly passed in recent days. I am grateful to colleagues on both sides of the House for the warmth of their remarks about Cheryl both today and in the days since she died, on 4 April.
Mr Speaker, you mentioned Cheryl’s kindness to new Members. I was a beneficiary of that in 1997. As an Education Minister in the previous Parliament, she was very active in making sure that those of us with an interest in and a passion for education got involved in dealing with the first piece of legislation from that Government.
Much has also been made of the great work she did in promoting the interests of women in the House of Commons. I would also want to add that I ended up being perhaps the greatest beneficiary of her sterling qualities in the few years she spent as vice-chairman of the 1922 committee. I certainly benefited from her great unflappable qualities. She was a very smart, very stylish woman and always there to give support. As soon as something happened—we had one or two emergencies in the last few years—a call to Cheryl would immediately settle my nerves and I would know that everything would be done as well as it could possibly be done.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I feel privileged, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, to extend our most sincere condolences to Dame Cheryl’s family, and to all her many friends both across the House and beyond, on the extremely sad news of her death.
I feel very privileged to have served with Dame Cheryl on the Public Accounts Committee over the past year. Despite our engagements being mostly remote during this very extraordinary time, I learned a great deal from listening to her as she held civil servants to account. She was always elegant, always gracious, but woe betide any Department for Transport official who arrived unprepared for her dignified and tenacious grillings on the progress of HS2.
It has been a pleasure to hear the memories of the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) with their own experiences and obviously long association with Dame Cheryl. I feel quite acutely the loss of what might have been. Despite her long service in this House—I was surprised to find that she was only 68, not because she looked older but because of how long she had served—she had a great deal more to give. She has been taken from us far too soon. For those of us who are much newer to the House, I feel we have lost the great potential to have benefited from her wisdom, gathered over many years. I would like to take the opportunity once more to extend my sincerest condolences.