Baroness Crawley:

Moved by Baroness Crawley

That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

My Lords, I have been asked not to be too controversial today as I might “spook the markets”. I cannot remember whether the Chief Whip said the gilt market, the bond market or the bear market, but I do not want to spook any markets. I enjoy a market, especially a farmers’ market.

What an immense pleasure it is to propose the humble Address. I say a huge thank you to our staff, including our security staff and our doorkeepers, for making sure we all scrub up well for His Majesty. A friend of mine—well, I say a friend—was explaining to one of our new Peers what takes place this afternoon. He said, “The mover of the Motion is the one on the way out, and the seconder is the one on the way up”. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that my seconder is my noble friend Lord Roe of West Wickham, a former firefighter—so he can give me a fireman’s lift on the way out. He is looking at me now, assessing the weight risk. Perhaps a firefighter’s carry: I think that means more specialist equipment.

About my noble friend Lord Roe, what can I say? He has already been singled out for great things, especially in the world of building safety, and I wish him well in the future. He has a serious record of service. He was the first London Fire Brigade commissioner to sign the Armed Forces covenant, and he was awarded the King’s Fire Service Medal in 2024’s New Year Honours List—so watch this space.

In my 27 years in your Lordships’ House, so much has changed. Social media did not exist in 1998—imagine life without TikTok. President Trump was still in real estate—happy days. The Archbishop of Canterbury probably did not wear nail varnish, and the Clerk of the Parliaments was not called Chloe.

My first proper conversation with Members of your Lordships’ House was on the day of my introduction. I sat at the Long Table for afternoon tea. On either side of me were Earl Grey and Lord Palmer, of the Huntley & Palmers empire. I realised I was having tea and biscuits with “tea” and “biscuits”—how mad is that. On the same day, I heard an elderly Peer say, “We had one of those Labour women in today. She was wearing slacks. It’s going that way, you know”. I am pleased to say, looking round the House at all my women colleagues, that it has gone that way. We now have 284 women Members, as of April, and I sincerely hope there are more to come. Anyway, they were not slacks; it was a rather nice trouser suit.

It is expected on this occasion to say something nice about the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip. I need no encouragement. Our Leader is passionate, intuitive, supportive of us all, wise and witty, and has given great service to the country in both Houses, especially with her work in Northern Ireland. We are blessed to have the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. As we say on these Benches, the only way is Essex.

I recently read the book by the noble Lord, Lord Hart of Tenby, about his time as Chief Whip in the Sunak Government. He writes hilariously about the misdemeanours of his MPs; a personal favourite was the 3 am phone calls to get them out of sticky situations. Thank goodness that we on this side of the House have all led completely blameless lives. When it comes to his time, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will have nothing disobliging to say about us at all—well, virtually nothing. Some think that Chief Whips should be blighters and bullies, and other words beginning with “b”, but our Chief Whip is nothing of the sort. He is an utterly delightful man and I, for one, am only too glad to stay late into the night because it means we can spend more time with him.

Looking round the Chamber, I see our new-ish Lord Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. He will merge humour and discipline with integrity, and a little promise to himself to be nicer to the Lib Dems—the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, take note. It is also good to see the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, in his new role, which I know he will carry with aplomb.

We all have our guilty pleasures. Some of us—they know who they are—like dressing up in “Harry Potter” costumes. But my guilty pleasure is that I like to have perfectly civilised conversations with the Lords Leader of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, the doughty noble Lord, Lord True. They are usually about our diametrically opposed views on Brexit; neither convinces the other, but it is fun trying.

The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, esteemed Convenor of the Cross Benches, must be very proud of his flock. We do not need Google in this House—we have got the Cross-Benchers, and they know everything.

I see the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, in her place. Greens are good for us, she insists. Well, after last week, some of us may beg to differ.

To be serious, for many of us, the local elections have been an utterly bruising experience. For some—my Welsh colleagues—it has been blunt force trauma. For others, such as Plaid, it has been more positive. However, I am beyond upset that Reform, which is not fit to govern, has taken seats from hard-working local councillors, from parties across the House, who are the foundations of our democracy. We on this side have harsh lessons to learn from 7 May, but I will not take those lessons from Reform. I am proud of the measures we have already achieved in our Government: minimum wage up; child poverty down; rights for millions of workers up; jeopardy for renters down.

And so, we come to today’s gracious Speech. I managed to get in early today. With that famous revolving pod, none of us can ever again feel secure that we will get into the place. I dressed in the Library—I must stop doing that—and I waited in the Chamber for the gracious Speech, with noble Lords. While sitting there quietly, I thought about the uncertainty and the anxiety of the times we live in—internationally of course, with Gaza, Ukraine, and the Middle East, but also at home, where our Jewish friends are once again being targeted, and where flags mean Division and intolerance. History, as we all know, is always closer than we think.

The gracious Speech outlined the Government’s determination to control the cost of living pressures that people are finding so hard to manage. It seeks to protect the energy, defence and economic security of the country. It shows determination to tackle antisemitism and to protect all our communities that are vulnerable to racism and prejudice. It builds on our new relationship with our European allies and confirms a route back to Europe for our young people—and I hope that means a way back for our artists and creatives, too. I particularly welcome our ongoing commitment to championing the rights of women and girls to live free from violence, wherever they are. While we of course welcome the renewed commitment to NATO, I believe that we need to set out a clear financial path to increased defence spending urgently.

People are thoroughly fed up—basically, they have been fed up since 2008, with the financial crisis, the years of austerity, Brexit, Covid, Ukraine and the current energy crisis. No Government can turn that round in TikTok time, but I believe that this Government will use every ounce of strength to wrestle these problems and regain the trust of the British people in doing so. I beg to move that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty.

My Lords, I second my noble friend Lady Crawley’s Motion for an humble Address to His Majesty. Before I thank those I must thank, I start by saying that you should never go second. I heard that some time ago in my life, and once again that advice is proven right. I must thank the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip—before I get started on him later in my speech—for granting me the enormous privilege of making this address, and for their support and kindness towards me and all my new colleagues and friends.

It is genuinely daunting to follow my noble friend, who, both in her speech and, more obviously, in her life and career, has done so many amazing things, whether that was teaching children, running a theatre or acting on our behalf in Europe as an MEP. She has done so much in all those roles to forward the rights of women in society, employment and health. My experience, in the short time I have been here, is that this House is full of people, on all Benches, who have done so much to serve and better society. My noble friend is the best example of that.

Sitting for a cup of tea with my political heroes, including Neil Kinnock—my noble friend Lord Kinnock —has been entirely surreal. And that is before we even get to Black Rod, the wands and the hats, the Mace, and our magical friends and colleagues, the doorkeepers. A new one I learned today is the Cap of Maintenance. However, in so many other ways, the experience has been strangely familiar. For example, there are frequent jarring bells that sound exactly like the ones that got me out of bed when I first joined the London Fire Brigade. In the rush to vote, while I have yet to find a pole, there is definitely a collective urgency, which is reflected in the meals left half-eaten in the dining room. Although, to be fair, I have not yet come back and found my meal finished off by an errant colleague from another watch—or, as I now know them, the Opposition. I am afraid that, in the context of my tuna melt, I include the Cross-Benchers. Just to be clear, if any of you do feel the need to finish off my tuna melt, there will be some obvious suspects, because I have been watching you.

Having arrived here so thoroughly institutionalised, I found my noble friend Lord Kennedy, the Chief Whip—contrary to his reputation before I arrived—a very comforting figure. His removal of any sort of choice from my life has been very calming and reassuring. Thank goodness for my noble friend, because it is not just political choice. I no longer have to worry about my working hours, because I am here, or any of my own opinions, because—I say this with the greatest respect to my Labour colleagues—the last week has shown us that opinions are perhaps a bit dangerous and possibly overrated. I do not even have to think about where I sit, because Glenys, my noble friend Lady Thornton, told me about 10 minutes ago. I have only recently experienced a brief and very confusing period back out in civilian life with a frightening and, frankly, overwhelming freedom of choice, and my noble friend Lord Kennedy has returned a sense of order and certainty that has the echoes of barracks and mess-rooms, roll-calls and inspections that I know so well.

I do not want to overegg this, but the fact that my noble friend also communicates this with such absolute certainty and clarity through his NCOs—or, as we know them, the Whips’ Office—is also strangely reminiscent of my younger life. For example, my noble friend Lady Anderson, who I can see just in front of me, has such military volume in the Lobby. In the case of my own corporal—sorry, Whip—my noble friend Lady Wheeler, there is what I now call the hard stare, which has usefully prevented me wandering the wrong way or playing “Candy Crush” on my phone when I should have been listening. Although he is not part of the Whips’ team, and I am not sure whether he is standing here, Mr Ingram, the Principal Doorkeeper, also deserves an honourable mention—and no, Mr Ingram, I will not wear those shoes again.

As I said at the start, I am very grateful for this opportunity. I thank the Leader of the House and Lord Privy Seal, my noble friend Lady Smith, for perhaps the greatest opportunity within that wider opportunity. On seeing that I was bored on first coming into the House and perhaps had too much time on my hands, doing about three other jobs outside it, she offered me the chance to make new friends across both Houses and to indulge my love of wood panelling, antiques and history—alongside my other hobby, regulatory building safety—by getting involved in the restoration and renewal of Parliament. Thank you so much; what an opportunity. I have now learned never to use the phrase “old people’s home” in the same sentence as any reference to restoration and renewal following my address to the Labour group on the subject. So many of them are sitting here with me today, and I thank them for their direct and unambiguous feedback. It is indeed a gift. I can see them now, particularly my noble friend Lady Brown of Silvertown.

In all seriousness, if we turn to the substance of today’s King’s Speech, I was moved to be offered a chance to sit as a Labour Peer this year. It felt genuinely overwhelming to sit in this Chamber as we voted to lift the two-child benefit cap, raising hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, and to be part of a Government who had already voted to protect workers and renters; who had removed planning restrictions to help us build houses and infrastructure; and who, in the changes they are bringing forward to the NHS, are supporting our fantastic health workers to deliver the service that this country deserves. In that, I must thank the fantastic ward sisters who looked after my dad just this week in Lewisham hospital. They are a shining example of what this country can achieve when we pull together.

From my short time in Parliament and the work I do outside these Houses, I know that while we as a party do not yet seem able to tell the story of what we are doing, I can see it happening. It is beginning. In my work life outside here, I have previously led and am still leading turnaround change in a tough environment. I know from personal experience that momentum, particularly at a national scale, is hard to achieve and even harder to explain before the impact is clearly seen and felt.

However, even with these headwinds of global conflict and economic strife, I watch my Civil Service, public sector and private sector colleagues work together daily to drive change. That, in the end, will make a real difference, whether in housing, which is the sector that I am involved in, in health or in transport—I look forward with great interest to the coming of Great British Railways. I thank all of them deeply, whether they are in the private sector, public sector or in our Civil Service, for that shared endeavour. Sometimes, in this House or in the media, we do not always see it or recognise it. I think that we need to do more to celebrate it, because my experience has been that, generally, people are united in delivery, and particularly because I have always believed that change is delivered by people on the front line—it is dreamt up and envisaged, and if we listen to them carefully, it will be delivered on the front line. It is the millions of our fellow workers who will really set the change for this country if we as a Government—and I say this in partnership with colleagues across the Houses—set the direction well on behalf of the nation.

Noble Lords can probably tell that I am a born optimist. I think that, generally, everything good that we see in this country has come from a Labour Government. I believe that, and I want to be part of that team. Therefore, my message to colleagues in both Houses is, “Hold your nerve and keep going”.

I can see the promise in what has already been done and is coming in this Parliament, even if there is much more to do to roll back the years of neglect and austerity and, therefore, raise our heads as a country together. Within this next Parliament, there is a real opportunity to signal that integrity has returned to politics and public service. I have a strong belief that the Hillsborough law, if implemented properly in this Parliament, will do that. Speaking as someone who has directly witnessed the deaths of so many fellow citizens as a result of system and institutional failure and who then saw the cowardice that was shown in subsequent public inquiry, I believe that law cannot come too soon.

In a similar vein, those experiences, stretching from the streets of Portadown to inner London, have shown me that the threat to our way of life and national unity has radically evolved over the decades. We see it manifested in the terrible antisemitism that is present on our streets in this very city. We see it in the attacks on places of worship of all kinds. I did not think that, as London Fire Commissioner, I would one day be woken with a phone call explaining that Russian proxies—state actors—had burnt down warehouses in east London in an attack on our soil. A Bill that recognises the scale and changing nature of this threat will be delivered in this Parliament by the Government to make sure that we fulfil our most basic responsibility to keep our citizens safe.

As a former soldier, I saw the sacrifices our service men and women made to defend our way of life and democracy. The Armed Forces Bill, if delivered properly, will provide much-needed support to those men and women at a time when they stand between us and a world of increasing danger, chaos and Division. I look forward to the Government bringing forward the investment in defence that we must, for many of us who have seen conflict perhaps feel that we are already on the edge of war.

Finally, and perhaps most personally to me, Grenfell showed us that we must build the safe homes that this country both deserves and needs—in volume but, obviously, in quality. It has not yet gone quick enough, I am afraid, but it can, because the Government have already laid the right foundations, with more to come in this Parliament. The National Housing Bank has gone live, backed by £53 billion of investment—that was in March—ready to drive forward construction that, combined with a remediation Bill in this Session, if delivered properly, and with the support of our friends and colleagues in the construction industry, will mean that we restore pride, integrity and, most importantly, economic confidence in the UK residential market, particularly the flat-building market. It will take determination, pragmatism, proportionality and engagement from us all, with a relentless focus on delivery, both in the public and private sector, using the legislation that this Labour Government have already delivered around planning and housing.

I hope that when I sit in this Chamber in years to come, I will be able to look back on this Parliament, this Session, as being the moment when the legislation passed, combined with the collective will of private and public endeavour, which began to roll back years of neglect that have given rise to such damaging populism and division, false hope and false narrative. I think that the quiet Majority of the British people want that. We have the potential and responsibility as a party and a Government to do just that. I thank all noble Lords for their time and their indulgence in listening.