John McFall (Baron McFall) – 2022 Address to HM King Charles III

The address made by John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith, the Lord Speaker, in Westminster Hall on 12 September 2022.

Your Majesty, I welcome you and Her Majesty the Queen Consort to Parliament today, on this solemn occasion.

Her late Majesty, our treasured Queen, and your beloved and deeply missed Mother, came here to Westminster Hall many times to receive the congratulations of her loyal subjects in the two Houses of Parliament and to celebrate with them historic landmarks and her long life of dedicated public service. She was both a Leader to, and a servant of, Her people. Her humility and integrity commanded the respect and captured the imagination of peoples and nations across the globe. Her late Majesty’s joyous, unstinting and reassuring presence across the years made it difficult to contemplate that her long and inspiring reign of deep and unparalleled devotion would ever end. We, and the nation, closed our eyes to this inevitability.

But it has ended, only a few months after we celebrated Her late Majesty’s historic platinum jubilee. And as You said so movingly, Your Majesty, in Your address to the nation, we all now feel a “sense of loss, beyond measure”.

Nevertheless, the qualities that Her late Majesty embodied with such constancy remain, to inspire You, Your Majesty, your family, and all your subjects. We remember Her commitment. Her kindness. Her humour. Her courage and Her fortitude. And the deep faith which was the anchor in her life.

Your Majesty, this is a historic space, its walls built more than 900 years ago by William Rufus, the magnificent hammerbeam roof commissioned 300 years later by Richard II.

Since medieval times much of our national story has taken place within these very walls, from civic gatherings, to Coronation Banquets, to the centuries during which this Hall was the heart of our legal system.

But this ancient Hall is a living space, and like our great nation it continues to evolve. In 2012 Her late Majesty came to Westminster Hall to mark her Diamond Jubilee, and we saw the unveiling of the splendid memorial window, commissioned by Members of both Houses of Parliament, which now graces the north wall of this historic space.

And now, for ten years, the light from that window has added beauty to the grey stones of this place, bathing them in colour and reminding hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Palace of Westminster of Her late Majesty’s dedicated life of service.

Like the light that shines through this memorial window, Her late Majesty’s magnificent achievements will live on by permanently illuminating and enriching our lives and our national discourse. Your Majesty, even as we mourn the loss of our dear Queen, we, and future generations, will draw strength from Her shining example.

Your Majesty, on behalf of all the members of the House of Lords I pledge my loyalty to You, and wish You, and Her Majesty the Queen Consort, well in the life of service to which You have dedicated yourself. We are proud and humbled to welcome you as our King, and we look forward to welcoming You on many more occasions to Parliament, and to this Hall, in the years ahead.

Finally, Your Majesty, the House has commissioned me to deliver the following Humble Address, which their Lordships agreed on the tenth of September. I shall now read the Address:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to convey to Your Majesty the deep sympathy felt by this House in the grief Your Majesty has sustained by the death of our late beloved Queen, Your Majesty’s Mother, of blessed and glorious memory;

To extend to all the Royal Family the deep sympathy of this House in their grief, which is shared by all its Members;

To assure Your Majesty that the example of selfless public service which our late Sovereign displayed over Her reign of 70 years, Her untiring endeavours for the welfare of Her peoples and Her fortitude in adversity will ever be held in reverent, affectionate, and grateful remembrance;

And to express to Your Majesty our loyalty to Your Majesty’s Royal Person, and our firm conviction that, under the blessing of Divine Providence, Your Majesty will, throughout Your Reign, further the happiness and protect the liberties of all Your peoples in all Your Realms.