80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a powerful and humbling debate. I share the sense of honour that many noble Lords have expressed at the opportunity to take part in it. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough chose a very good debate in which to make her maiden speech, and she enhanced it with her wise and compassionate words; we look forward to hearing from her more in the years to come.

Many noble Lords have shared deeply moving stories about the scars that the Second World War left on their families, from the poignant story the Minister shared about his uncle, Sergeant Major Vernon Coaker, in his excellent opening speech, to those who recalled the heroic example of their forebears from across not just these islands but proud countries across the world. As all those stories attest, no family was left untouched by this worldwide conflict. We rightly honour those who donned uniform and took up arms, too many of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom we enjoy today and whose names are etched in stone in every parish of the land.

As well as honouring their memory, we are able—after this gap of eight decades—to give more public thanks than was possible of the first VE Day to those who played their part in other ways, such as the men and women who worked in absolute secrecy in codebreaking, counterintelligence and clandestine operations of breathtaking bravery. We recall with horror the atrocities of the Holocaust, the appalling details of which were only beginning to become known in May 1945. We remember the civilians who dug for victory, who kept the home fires burning and who sat in the biting cold on rooftops—including the Cathedral of Peterborough—to keep watch during the Blitz. We celebrate the vital and valiant role played by our cousins of all creeds and races, from the Caribbean, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and across the British Empire.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, knows of my love for Trinidad, so I particularly enjoyed her summoning up of the steelpan celebrations there. We heard such powerful contributions, including from the noble Lords, Lord Boateng, Lord Sahota and Lord Parekh, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, and many others.

We also remember those who contributed to this total war effort in other ways. My great-grandfather Isaac Parkinson was a trawlerman on the River Tyne. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for joining the Royal Naval Reserve and sweeping for mines and keeping watch for enemy submarines. Another great-grandfather, Jim Scott, was a miner and exempt from military service because of the vital importance of that humble but noble profession. He toiled underground with reinforcements from the Bevin Boys, so belatedly recognised for their contribution, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, recalled.

We remember the Forgotten Army, including my great-uncle Bob, who secured victory in Japan as well as in Europe, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, my noble friend Lady Meyer and many others mentioned.

It has been wonderful to hear so many powerful stories being shared, not just by noble Lords in today’s debate but in conversations being had across the country this week. I thank the Government and congratulate them on a very well-run week of commemorations and celebrations. I hope the Ministers will take back our thanks to the officials in both of their departments for the work they have done in organising them: from street parties to the service of thanksgiving to the wonderful concert enjoyed by 12,000 people on Horse Guards Parade last night, and by millions more at home thanks to the BBC—a corporation which itself played such a vital part in maintaining morale during the dark years of the war.

I thank as well the many organisations such as English Heritage which, as the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, said are the stewards of our national memory. Across the country, people have marked this anniversary in manifold and moving ways. Over the bank holiday weekend, I was in Ripon, which was bedecked with hand-knitted bunting and in the marketplace of which was stationed an extraordinary knitted tank that was 24-feet long and modelled faithfully on a D-Day tank preserved at Bovington Tank Museum.

On Tuesday, I had the honour of attending the commemorations at the Tower of London, whose Norman keep not only rose like St Paul’s Cathedral as a beacon of hope and defiance during the Blitz, but was put back into use in the war to house prisoners of war. It was a beautifully arranged ceremony, but the most moving part was the presentation of flowers by young cadets from the University of London’s Officer Training Corps, which my noble friend Lord Lingfield mentioned, to veterans of the Second World War. That simple gesture, expressed in flowers, reflects a sad past about this year’s commemorations: they are likely to be the last significant moment for us to thank personally and directly veterans of the Second World War.

Throughout my life, the obituary pages of our newspapers have been filled with astonishing stories about these everyday heroes. But those stories are slowing, and soon they will stop. Only last week, we lost Cecil Newton, one of the last survivors of D-Day, at the age of 101. If there is any injunction that the remaining veterans would give us, it is to remember, not just them, but their comrades and the sacrifices made by so many, servicemen and civilians alike. As noble Lords have noted, that injunction is more pressing than ever. This has been not just a history debate but a chastening reminder that we live, once again, in an age of conflict across the European continent, and that extremism and intolerance are on the rise.

Noble Lords, and particularly noble and gallant Lords, have made points today of great contemporary pertinence. Just this week, Greater Manchester Police arrested nine people, and seized Nazi memorabilia, after they had celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday in an Oldham pub. I am sure that I am not the only one to be horrified by that news, or dismayed by the proposal of newly elected councillors to lower the Ukrainian flags that have flown with pride and solidarity over so many county halls under councils controlled by all parties and none. Even in this week of commemoration, it is clear that we have much yet to learn.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, and I were both born closer to the end of the Second World War than to today, but that gap grows ever wider for all of us. For children who are born today, even the wonderful commemorations that we have held this week will not form part of their memory. Deeply troubling research by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission conducted last year found that fewer than half of those aged 18 to 34 knew what happened on D-Day, and that one in five young people believes that there no longer any need to commemorate events such as VE Day. Theirs is a generation that needs urgently to know the dangers of extremism and hatred. While there are still some witnesses to history among us, let us all ensure that their voices are heard and that their lessons are heeded.

As my noble friend Lord Minto reminded us, it was in this very Chamber that Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons on 8 May 1945, the other place having been destroyed by the Luftwaffe in 1941. Your Lordships’ House sat at that time just yards away in the Robing Room. On VE Day, it considered a number of modest but important measures, including the Pontypool Gas Bill and the South Shields Corporation Bill—noble Lords carrying out their duties, as ever, with typical understatement.

Here in this Chamber, however, the Prime Minister came to tell Parliament the news that it had longed to hear. My noble friend Lord Lexden has written about it in the current edition of The House magazine. Every seat in the Chamber was occupied. Churchill arrived 15 minutes late, delayed by the ovation that he received from the great crowd in the streets outside. As the diarist and MP for Southend, Sir Henry “Chips” Channon, recorded,

“for a few embarrassed minutes we had nothing to do! Members, amused, asked desultory questions about next week’s business as they glanced at the doors behind the Speaker’s Chair”.

Just before 3.30 pm, the great man entered. In the Galleries, visitors, including the playwright Terence Rattigan, stood and clapped. Members of Parliament “rose and cheered” Churchill,

“and waved handkerchiefs and order papers”.

As Harold Nicolson put it, “MPs yelled and yelled”.

The Statement that Churchill read out was short and powerful. At the end, he added two or three sentences, seeking to convey to the House his

“deep gratitude to this House of Commons, which has proved itself the strongest foundation for waging war that has ever been seen in the whole of our long history”.

As he put it,

“the strength of the Parliamentary institution has been shown to enable it at the same moment to preserve all the title deeds of democracy while waging war in the most stern and protracted form”.

After thanking members of all parties for the way in which they had maintained

“the liveliness of Parliamentary institutions … under the fire of the enemy”,

he moved a simple but powerful Motion:

“That this House do now attend at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance from the threat of German domination”. —[Official Report, Commons, 8/5/1945; col. 1869.]


It was an identical Motion to one, he noted, that had been moved in former times.

On this important anniversary, we pray that we may never have occasion to move such a Motion in times to come. But we recall with pride and humility the indomitable spirit of Britain and her allies in the Second World War, and we renew our thanks for that deliverance, as well as our commitment to preserve the peace and liberty that were so hard won.