Jane Austen

Louie French Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) for securing this debate on the literary and cultural legacy of Jane Austen. I also thank everyone in the Public Gallery and those around the UK, including my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who champion her legacy.

Two hundred and fifty years after her birth, Jane Austen remains not just a cornerstone of English literature but a distinctly English voice rooted in place, tradition, social order and moral responsibility—a true Tory perhaps. Her wit and insight are timeless. As she wrote:

“It is not what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”

That line captures something profoundly serious beneath the comedy: an emphasis on conduct, duty and personal responsibility. Those values feel increasingly relevant to Members of this place.

It is sometimes forgotten that Jane Austen was, by instinct and upbringing, a conservative figure in the truest sense of the word. She was, as we have heard, the daughter of a Church of England clergyman, deeply embedded in parish life. She was respectful of established institutions and sceptical of radical upheaval—she wrote in the long shadow of the French revolution. Her novels consistently defend the importance of social stability, inherited responsibility and moral restraint. She sought not to overturn society but to understand it and, where necessary, gently challenge and correct it. Her characters are judged not by fashionable opinions but by their behaviour towards others. Her heroines are not radicals attempting to dismantle the world around them, but thoughtful, intelligent women navigating society as it was in their time, valuing good judgment, self-control and integrity. Their flaws are acknowledged, their virtues earned, and their happy endings never accidental.

Jane Austen’s life was firmly rooted in England. She was born in Stevenson in rural Hampshire and wrote arguably her greatest works in Chawton. She lived for a time in Bath and was laid to rest in Winchester cathedral. She drew deeply from parish life, village society and the rhythms of provincial England. Those connections remain visible today across Hampshire, Bath, Southampton and beyond.

Jane Austen’s legacy continues to make a real economic contribution. Her house in Chawton attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year, as my right hon. Friend said, while Austen-related tourism supports jobs in hospitality, heritage and the creative industries. Her novels, which earned her just over £600 in her lifetime, now generate millions through book sales, film adaptations and cultural tourism. Her reach has grown further through adaptation: more than 70 films and television series have been inspired by her work, from faithful period dramas to modern reinterpretations, introducing new audiences to her stories and projecting a distinctively British cultural inheritance across the world. Her place in our national life is reflected not only in festivals and exhibitions but quite literally in our pockets. Since 2017, Jane Austen has featured on the £10 note—a quiet but fitting recognition of her contribution to our cultural and literary heritage.

Yet despite Jane Austen’s popularity, there have been attempts to sideline her work and that of other literary greats from parts of the curriculum. That would be a mistake. Jane Austen is not an optional extra in our cultural inheritance; she is central to it. The then Education Secretary said in December 2012:

“I do not see anything wrong with having the 19th century at the heart of the English curriculum. As far as I am concerned, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy—not to mention George Eliot—are great names that every child should have the chance to study.” —[Official Report, 12 December 2012; Vol. 554, c. 583.]

Two hundred and fifty years on from her birth, Jane Austen’s work endures because it speaks the permanent truths about human nature, society and the value of continuity over chaos. She reminds us that progress does not require rupture or revolution, and that civilisation is sustained not by grand theories but by character, restraint and responsibility. That is a literary and cultural legacy well worth defending and celebrating.

At the end of my short speech, I would like to thank everyone for their contributions. I wish them all a merry Christmas, and I hope this Government can find some sense and sensibility in 2026.