Tributes to Tony Benn

Harriet Harman Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his generous and thoughtful words on Tony Benn.

This is a parliamentary occasion to remember Tony Benn, but it was a parliamentary occasion every time Tony Benn spoke in this House, and before the House was televised I well remember that when we saw the name “Tony Benn” on the monitor we would all stop what we were doing in our offices and rush into this Chamber to hear him. All those who passionately agreed with him and those who passionately disagreed with him would be here to listen.

He was a great orator both inside and outside this House, and what made his oratory great was not just his formidable intellect—although he had that—or his great historical knowledge, although he had that too: it was that he spoke out of conviction and he always spoke from the heart.

He was first elected to this House in 1950 but was concerned that upon his father’s death his inheritance of a peerage would disqualify him from serving his constituents who had elected him to this House. On his father’s death in 1960 he was disqualified, but fought his way back to this House through the Peerage Act 1963 and a by-election.

When Labour formed a Government in 1964 he became Postmaster General and then Minister of Technology, and with Labour in power again from 1974 to 1979 he became Secretary of State for Industry and then Secretary of State for Energy, and he encouraged a number of workers’ co-operatives, the most notable of which was Meriden in the midlands, which continued to produce Triumph motorcycles for another decade.

What drove him on was his belief in the power of people, as the Deputy Prime Minister said: the power of ordinary people, through their trade unions and their votes, to bring about change—and change for the better. His commitment was to the historic fight against social injustice, but he was never locked in the past. He embraced myriad new movements, such as the green movement and the women’s movement. Because he believed in movements—the power of people working together to make change—he was always encouraging people and giving them the confidence that they could do that.

Everyone who ever met Tony has their own story about that, and this is mine. Back in the mid-1980s, as the only woman MP with very young children and finding it quite impossible to cope, I was sitting by myself in the corner of the Strangers caff. It was 11 o’clock at night and we were still waiting for a vote, and I was feeling terrible. Tony came and sat down next to me, and said, “You look exhausted. You should be at home.” I said that I could not go home, because I had not been let off by the Whips. He said, “I can give you a really important piece of advice for your future. You do not have to worry about the Whips; I never do.” So I was sent home to my family by Tony Benn, himself a great family man.

The public know Tony Benn for his passion for politics, but his other great lifelong passion was his family: his wife, his children and his grandchildren. He proposed to Caroline only nine days after meeting her, explaining that it would have been sooner but he was quite shy. He later bought the bench on which they were sitting when he proposed, and it remained in their garden until the end. He was enormously and justifiably proud of his children: his daughter Melissa, so like her mother, and his sons Joshua, Stephen and Hilary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central, so like him. His legacy is not just to the House and to progressive politics in this country, but in the values and commitment taken forward by his children and grandchildren, to whom we extend our sympathy and with whom we share the grief of the loss of a great parliamentarian and a great politician.