Luke Pollard – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II
The tribute made by Luke Pollard, the Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, in the House of Commons on 10 September 2022.
I rise to speak on behalf of people in Plymouth to express our condolences to the royal family on the death of the Queen. I have dated a lot of queens in my time, but I have only ever met the Queen once, shortly after being elected in 2018. It was a wet day at Plymouth train station, and I was doubly excited. First, as a train nerd, I was going to get a sight of the royal train. We do not get regal rolling stock in Devon very often, so I was excited about that. Secondly, it was a chance to see a true icon of our age, a leader like no other—the Queen. She toddled off the train, meeting the dignitaries and looking resplendent in a pink outfit and a pink hat. I looked down at my tie, which was bright pink as well, and thought to myself, “Queens really do wear pink.” When she got to me, she said, “Why aren’t you in Parliament?” I thought, “Oh dear, I’d better get this right.” I said. “Well, the Whips let me off.” She said, “I would hope they did, too.” She gave me a little smile, and I thought, “That was all okay.” That was the spirit of the Queen—meeting so many people and putting them at ease.
The Queen was in Plymouth that day to decommission HMS Ocean before it sailed to Brazil. As the head of our armed forces, she visited Plymouth and Devonport dockyard on number of occasions. She was very much part of our military command structure, our Royal Navy and our Royal Marines. She first visited in 1942, at the age of just 16, visiting the dockyards with her father, King George VI. Four years later, she visited again as a sea ranger to see the battleship HMS Duke of York.
The Queen’s visits to our city parallel our recovery, from the ashes of the Plymouth Blitz to the renewal and evolution of our military tactics with the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, the rebuilding of Plymouth city centre and the opening of the civic centre in 1962. In 1988, as we marked the 400th anniversary of the Spanish armada, she opened the sundial in Plymouth city centre, giving our teenagers somewhere to meet their mates in town in the almost 40 years since.
The Queen leaves an incredible legacy. As a daughter, wife and mother to Royal Navy officers, her links to the Royal Navy, and to Devonport in particular, are plentiful. They include not just when she presents the Navy with new colours, as she did in 2003, but her many visits to express sorrow for the members of our armed forces family we lost in action. Often those were visits without fanfare, and conversations with real heart.
For my generation, the Queen was the grandma to the nation, a towering figure of female leadership. For a lifetime of devotion, selfless public service and duty, we say thank you. Long live the King.
