Tributes: Baroness Jowell

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Tessa Jowell was both a very special person and a very special politician, and the qualities of one reinforced the brilliance of the other. She was the best friend that anyone could wish for: loyal, true, uplifting and empathetic. There are many people in this House and outside it who, when they found themselves at a low ebb, would know that Tessa was there for them, holding out love and support: never your judge and jury, always your friend and shelter in a storm.

She was quite simply full of love—full of love for her family, her friends, and the causes she believed in. She loved London, our great capital city. She loved it for its openness, its diversity, its endless opportunities, and its focus on tomorrow rather than yesterday. As a politician, she was a change-maker, a moderniser. Her mission was not to preserve Britain or seek illusory solace in nostalgia but to change it for the better—and always, always in a progressive direction. For her, Sure Start—the mission to give every child from whatever background the best possible start in life—was not just a Government programme but a symbol of what she believed the United Kingdom should stand for.

For the London Olympics, she not only played a vital role in winning the bid but helped to shape the character of what, for many of us, was the greatest moment of Britishness and the coming together of the country in our lifetimes. She understood more than anyone that how we hosted the games was as important as what happened in the competition itself. She gave us our golden summer. She gave the country our united golden moment.

Her love and empathy were there for the families of the victims of terrorism on 9/11 and in the 7/7 London underground bombings. There was Tessa, full of love and the desire to help—the human embodiment of the total antithesis of the hatred that had caused those people their grief.

And in her final illness, she was determined not to go quietly into that good night. She fought for better treatment for cancer sufferers and for international collaboration on how to treat the disease, and—as the Secretary of State can testify—used all her firmness and charm to ensure that Ministers backed their words of support with the very welcome new resources announced for cancer research today. She was both proud of what she had achieved and immensely grateful for having had the opportunity to achieve it. She was thankful for the era that she lived through—the modernising movement for progressive change and social justice of which she was such a vital and brilliant part.

At a time when there is so much that divides the country, and when demonisation of others is all too readily reached for and transmitted in the world of politics, we should remember that Tessa Jowell represented the opposite of all that. Let us give thanks and remember her not only for the wonderful things that she did, but for the way that she did them, and for the many lives that she changed for the better along the way.