80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate. I congratulate my right reverend friend the Bishop of Peterborough on her excellent maiden speech, and I look forward to her insightful and wide-ranging contribution to the work of this House in the coming days, particularly drawing on her experience in education and with young people. I also thank the Minister for his very moving and impassioned speech opening this debate.

We commemorate a time of extraordinary sacrifice and service in the story of our nation, as well as our allied partners, notably in the Commonwealth. Victory, we know, was hard won. I pay particular tribute to the vital work of the Armed Forces chaplains, who served with great distinction throughout the war. We can be thankful that they remain an essential and fully integrated part of our military capability, not only because of their vital role in times of conflict but for the well-being of all service personnel during training, on exercise and on deployment in strategic peacetime operations.

In my diocese, among the Armed Forces I pay tribute to the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, one of the four armoured regiments tasked to lead the British assault landings on the Normandy beaches on D-Day. They remained in action for 50 of the 60 days it took to win the Normandy campaign. Through France, Belgium and Holland, and eventually into Germany, they were used to provide the armoured push that led infantry attacks.

Yet the casualties of war included many lives also lost in our cities, which bravely withstood the relentless bombing raids early in the war, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, expressed so movingly. During overnight raids in Nottingham 84 years ago today, 159 people were killed and many hundreds were injured. There almost certainly would have been far more casualties if the city had not also been the first to deploy a detailed ARP plan, which many other cities would soon follow. While our cities would of course be rebuilt, the trauma and loss that many people experienced remained a painful shadow over their lives.

It is sobering that our celebrations this week take place against the backdrop of a tense and uncertain time of global instability and conflict. It is necessary and urgent that we rebuild our military capability as an essential deterrent to avoid future conflicts, as a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, have expressed so clearly. Alongside this, we must also retain and enhance our investment in peacekeeping resources, such as the training of skilled mediators, and in post-conflict stabilisation. As Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers”. We can join with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in being thankful and praying for the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, who I am sure will be an inspiration to all Christian people and people of other faiths in being truly lion-hearted bridge builders in our broken and divided world.

Our military capacity is, on one level, much reduced from what it was in the past, but that is no reason to limit our ambitions and our potential to make a difference, especially if we draw on our strengths in technology, creativity and diplomacy. We need to nurture the aspirations of a rising generation to have a compassionate worldview, a view that is not at odds with loyalty to our nation and where deep convictions and wide sympathies are not in conflict. I wonder whether this might somewhat be diminished if we are also closing off the opportunities for young people to experience the wider world at first hand. I therefore ask His Majesty’s Government to consider how we can further incentivise our universities and colleges to maintain and enhance the opportunities for international exchange study, perhaps also reconsidering how we might re-engage with the Erasmus programme, which provides vital opportunities for young people to have their own personal insight into our wider world.

We need to deepen our listening and understanding, not to compel agreement or to undermine distinctive beliefs and heritage that each may hold with confidence but in order that we may stand together in contending for the value of our common humanity and the unique dignity, worth and freedom of every individual, which the sacrifices of the Second World War did so much to ensure for generations to come.