Chris Ward

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for securing the debate and for his excellent speech, and I thank other hon. Members for their contributions. I am happy to have the opportunity to respond. I pass on apologies from the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), who, as I am sure hon. Members will recognise, would dearly have loved to have responded to the debate, but is unable to be here because of a family matter, so I am standing in. Ernest Bevin was a man of immense stature—a giant of the Labour movement and the embodiment of social mobility. He was born into poverty as the seventh child of a single mother and orphaned at the age of eight, yet he rose to be one of my party’s towering figures, one of his country’s most consequential Foreign Secretaries and one of the founders of NATO. He is aptly described by Lord Adonis in his recent biography as “an international leader of unique charisma and authenticity.” His life story is a testimony to both public service and to his immense perseverance, skill and energy. Bevin never forgot his origins, keeping a photograph of his mother on his desk throughout his career. Leaving school at 11, he worked as a farm boy before moving to Bristol to take on a series of unskilled jobs, attending adult education classes and finding his voice as a Baptist lay preacher.