Graham Stuart

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. When I was elected for Beverley and Holderness in 2005, John Prescott, the MP for neighbouring Kingston upon Hull East, was of course already a legend. He was the word-mangling, fast-fisted former bar steward who had, for the last eight years, been Deputy Prime Minister of this United Kingdom. Hearing the tributes from across the House and all the ways in which that one man was able to influence history and make a difference is, I hope, an inspiration to aspirant working-class politicians all over the country, but also to people in this House. I knew John from a few years before I entered Parliament. He came to Cambridge for a transport summit, so I organised a demonstration against it and stood outside all day. The day went on and he did not come out. When eventually he did come out, I was just about the only demonstrator left. I immediately berated him and his entourage, and we had a surreal dance around the car park, before he went up to a Jaguar and tried to get in: it was not his. I think it took him quite some time to forgive me for that. I regularly saw John—as did colleagues from Hull, such as the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), who is sitting on the Government Front Bench—on Hull trains, and he was normally surrounded by papers at a four-place table that he was trying to keep entirely to himself. Although he was gruff, he was also engaging. He would often come to Beverley, when Pauline would go shopping and he would go to the Royal Standard pub, the finest establishment in Beverley, where he was always very welcome, and people to this day hold him in the highest regard. As has been remarked, he led our delegation to the COP at Kyoto in 1997, and was widely regarded as the key element in delivering its historic outcome, the first time an international agreement was made to recognise and cut climate emissions. The former US Vice-President Al Gore said that he had “never worked with anyone in politics…quite like John Prescott.” John continued to take climate issues seriously, and we would have passionate and rather loud conversations on the train as we went to and fro from east Yorkshire. When I led our delegation to last year’s COP, the first to commit to phasing out fossil fuels, I knew my team and I were following in the footsteps of someone who may have come from a humble background but went on to change the world.