Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Greg Hands Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

I rise to add my tribute to Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on behalf of my Chelsea and Fulham constituents at a time of great sadness for the whole country. She was much loved in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and among my Fulham constituents. She came at least once a year to my constituency, to the Chelsea flower show.

Indeed, it was at the Chelsea flower show that I personally met the Queen for the first time, in 2010, and the last time, just three months ago. The Chelsea flower show was one of her absolute favourite events. She rarely, if ever, missed it. She may have been to it more than 70 times. But in 2010 it was my first Chelsea flower show. I was third in the royal receiving line and exceptionally nervous. This was not helped by the receiving line taking around two hours, as almost the entire royal family came, at 10-minute intervals, starting with Princess Alexandra. Eventually the Queen arrived and all passed well. I had bowed in the right place and extended her my hand at the right time. We had a brief, charming and pleasant conversation. I could relax—except that I had forgotten one thing: she was not the last of the royal family to come. There was still, moments later, the Duke of Edinburgh. I realised my mistake and almost fell over, having messed up my bow and called him “Your Majesty”, to which the Duke smiled and said, “Are you new?” I pay tribute to him today as well: the late Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen’s beloved husband.

The last time I saw Her Majesty was at this year’s Chelsea flower show, which she toured with great enthusiasm in a golf cart. She was radiant and, as ever, fascinated by the displays. It was simply amazing to see her at the age of 96.

The Queen was much loved by my Fulham constituents as well. Indeed, one of the iconic pieces of video footage from the 1977 silver jubilee is a clip of a group of women on Kingwood Road in Fulham, arm in arm, wearing jubilee hats and singing, all together, “Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner”. She will be grieved and warmly remembered the length of King’s Road and, appropriately, along New King’s Road as well.

I also met Her Majesty in my role as the Government’s Deputy Chief Whip. Many in this House will know that the Deputy Chief Whip is also the honorific Treasurer of Her Majesty’s Household. The role comes with a wand of office, which looks like a long billiard cue and unscrews in the middle. My right hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) referred to it earlier. The day came in October 2013 for the transfer of the wand of office from my predecessor, Sir John Randall—now Lord Randall—to me in a ceremony at the palace. I was once again nervous, but once again it all started well. Sir John handed the Queen the wand of office, which she then handed to me. But I started fidgeting with it—I found it a fascinating article—as Sir John carried on speaking with Her Majesty. I started absentmindedly to unscrew the wand of office. I got an alarmed look from Her Majesty and an alarmed look from Sir John Randall, who told me, “Stop it!” I was told afterwards that if I had unscrewed entirely the wand of office, that would have meant rejecting the office and that Sir John would have had to come back here as the Government’s Deputy Chief Whip.

But that was not the worst thing. A minute or two later, the Queen suddenly said to me and Sir John—bear in mind that this was in 2013, at around the time of growing European rebellion in the Conservative party— “I do think Mr Baron has a point”, referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). By now I was a total wreck. The Queen was seemingly pronouncing on the greatest political issue of the time, and I had to give her an answer of behalf of the Government. Fortunately, she saw my difficulty and clarified that it was in reference to one of my hon. Friend’s many other rebellions—regimental mergers—and was nothing to do with Brexit at all.

The Queen’s historic significance, the length of her reign, everything that she had seen, the fact that she met every US president during her reign except one, the fact that her first Prime Minister was Sir Winston Churchill, who was born more than 100 years before my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), and the fact that Josef Stalin was still in the Kremlin when she came to the throne, show her historical significance. On behalf of my Chelsea and Fulham constituents, I pay tribute to the Queen and wish King Charles III a happy reign of many years.