PRESENTATION STONE FROM PALACE OF WESTMINSTER

Mr Speaker: Honourable Members will recollect that at a ceremony held at the Palace of Westminster on the 15th day of December, 1955, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Right Honourable Alan Lennox-Boyd, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, handed to our then Chief Minister, Mr David Marshall, a piece of stone salvaged from the damage inflicted on the Victoria Tower in the Palace of Westminster by air raids during the last war. The Chief Minister accepted the gift on behalf of the Government of Singapore and I duly received it from the Chief Minister on behalf of Members of this Assembly for its incorporation in the fabric of this building.

That has now been done. The Stone lies embedded in the wall behind the entrance to the Strangers Gallery with the inscription : -

"FROM THE FABRIC OF THE VICTORIA TOWER OF THE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER PRESENTED BY HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT TO THE SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT 15TH DECEMBER, 1955."

In reporting the gift to this Assembly, the Chief Minister referred to it as a "symbolic gesture of friendship and unity between the two Assemblies of Westminster and Singapore in the traditions of the democratic process".

I would say further that I would like to think of the Stone itself as a constant reminder of that tradition of free and orderly debate "garnered" over the centuries in Westminster, the pattern of which we have adopted and are in the process of adapting for our purposes here in our Assembly.