Emergency Services Cenotaph: Westminster

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning]

The right hon. Lady has hit the nail completely on the head. What better opportunity do we have? By the way, this campaign started long before covid—I shall come on to say a bit about how a lovely man called Tom got it going and how we got to this stage—but covid has brought the country together in a way that we have not seen since the second world war. Even though there is an expense and red tape—can we cut through some of the red tape?—and people will baulk at the fact that it will probably cost just over £3 million to do, who cares? In the scheme of things, £3 million is such a small amount of money when it could give so much to the country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for bring this debate forward, and he and the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for their perseverance in this task. I believe in and support this campaign because the right hon. Gentleman is right in what he is saying. This cenotaph will be for all the nations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales together—to thank all the people for all they have done. I want the right hon. Gentleman to know that I fully support what he is about and endorse his comments and campaign.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman is a great Unionist. I believe in the Union of this country, and the centre of the Union is where we are today: Westminster and Whitehall. To me, that is so important.

We have already raised £180,000, which has come from public donations. This is unusual for me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because as you know I never read in the House: I am dyslexic, something I am very proud of, and there is nothing I can do about it, so I do not usually read. But there are certain things that I want to read today so that I do not get certain people’s titles wrong, which I invariably do, and do not miss anybody out. We have already raised £180,000 and we need just over £3 million, but we also need two things, which I will come back to at the end: a decision on where the cenotaph is going to be and a commitment from the Government to help us to fund it.

The 999 cenotaph will be the first national monument to the NHS and other emergency workers who have served and will serve in future—it will be not just to those who have fallen. This is crucial: it is not just for those who have lost their lives, been seriously injured or been attacked in the line of duty. It will be a thank you—somewhere loved ones can go and just think about what their loved one has committed to the country. Some will have lost loved ones and some will have been injured in the line of duty. For our country not to have a central memorial to them shames us a little bit.

The 999 cenotaph is supported by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge; the Prime Minister; the First Ministers of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; and all the emergency services, including the fire service, the police, the coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Also, although I do not have them on my list, we have to be conscious that there are other volunteer emergency workers who are not part of the RNLI—when I became the Shipping Minister, I learned very quickly not to forget them, because safety inshore is very much done by them. The sculptor is the renowned Philip Jackson who created the Bomber Command memorial in Green Park and, closer to us, the Gandhi statue in Parliament Square. We could not have a greater person working on it. As I said, our preferred site is in Whitehall.

I have no idea what the Minister is going to say; we have not conferred. With my co-chair, I wrote a joint letter to the Prime Minister, so there is no doubt about what we are asking for. Hopefully, we might have a bit of good news. If we can get some movement on this, the monument should be finished by December 2022, in the year of Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee. If we can do that, what a fantastic message that would send.

There will be six figures on the plinth, plus one other, which I will come back to in a second. It will be in Portland stone and it will be 21 feet high from the ground to the top of the memorial. It will send an enormous message about how much this country cares. The six figures will be: a police officer, a firefighter, a maritime volunteer, a nurse, a paramedic, and a member of the search and rescue volunteer team—plus a service dog. We must not forget that it is not just human beings who go out there. Very often, they go out there with service dogs, whether police dogs or mountain rescue dogs. The figure of a dog will be a spaniel. There was a bit of discussion about what type of dog it would be. We are great dog lovers in this country. I think the spaniel works best. Those of us who are in this Chamber on a regular basis before the House opens for business know that the spaniels are here protecting us. I cannot think of a better breed of dog to be there.

How did we get to this stage? Tom Scholes-Fogg, the gentleman I referred to earlier, has been a trustee since 2016. In 2001, his grandfather John was a police sergeant in Greater Manchester. He was months away from retirement when one of his officers, PC Alison Armitage, was tragically killed on duty. I think that sparked something in him. In my constituency, PC Frank Mason was shot by bank robbers outside a Barclays bank years ago. Every single year, we come back and pay tribute to him. That is a small memorial in a constituency, in the middle of a town centre. I want one out here for the likes of Frank as well. Tom discovered, which surprised him, that there was no national memorial. When I first looked at this issue, I thought, “Of course we have one.” But actually, we do not. From one tragedy that happened to Alison, through Tom’s grandfather John and through Tom’s commitment, with his trustees—we have done all the directors and all the red tape; the Charity Commission is very happy—we have got to this stage.

We have some interesting quotes:

“As a society, we owe our wellbeing, and indeed our lives, to the men and women in our emergency services who work tirelessly to protect us in some of the most difficult circumstances. It is only fitting that we should recognise the vital role that they play and pay tribute to the bravery and dedication of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their communities.”

That was said by His Royal Highness Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. I have another quote:

“It takes a very special kind of person to put your life on the line for a complete stranger.”

That is from a long quote from the Prime Minister. He is fully committed to this:

“I know the dedicated men and women of the Emergency services did not get into this line of work for the accolades or applause.”

They do so because they want to do it. He said:

“You are the heroes of British life”.

He fully supports what we are calling for. I could go on. There was support from the First Minister of Northern Ireland at the time. The leader of the Democratic Unionist party in Northern Ireland, one of our parliamentarians, supports this. Nicola Sturgeon supports it. I could go on.

Basically, I am saying to the Minister that we have a commitment from all the powers in this country. It cannot be much greater than the future King of this country, the Prime Minister of this country and the leaders of all parts of this country. We also have, I can assure her, fantastic support from both sides of the House.

In the great scheme of things, this is a small amount of money. The least worst thing we would like is to be exempt from VAT for this project. The next best thing might be that the Treasury would match-fund us. Actually, what I would like, to show the commitment to our emergency workers and our service animals, is for the Government to say, “We’re going to help you find a spot, with Westminster City Council, in Whitehall, and by the way we’re going to pay for it.” I cannot think of a better way to spend the British pound than to do that.