Remembrance, UK Armed Forces and Society
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The Minister for the Armed Forces (James Heappey)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered remembrance, UK armed forces and society.
It is a real honour for me to open the debate not only as the Minister for the Armed Forces in the Ministry of Defence but as someone who has served on four operational tours to Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland. I hope that, at the end of my remarks, the House will indulge me in giving some personal reflections on the meaning of remembrance.
Before that, I want to draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the call list for the debate, which would make for a formidable half-company, should the nation ever call for us. The number of colleagues in the House who have served underlines the affinity between this place and our nation’s armed forces. A Defence Minister can often reflect on how the partisan hullabaloo of other areas of policy rarely encroaches on how we debate defence in this place. I know, as someone who served in at least two operational theatres that caused some political disagreement, that it really matters that this place not only robustly debates how and where we use our armed forces but does so always in a tone that makes those doing this place’s bidding in dangerous and dusty places realise that everybody in this House has the interests of our armed forces at heart, even when we disagree on how best to use them. I therefore look forward to another characteristically respectful and constructive debate.
It is an honour to take part in this debate on Armistice Day. This is a particularly significant year for remembrance. We are commemorating a century on from the installation of the Cenotaph, and we are marking 100 years since the interring of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey. That soldier represents the multitudes who gave their lives in the great war: a soldier buried
“among the kings because he had done good toward God and toward His house”.
Of course, this year we are also celebrating 75 years since the end of world war two.
Inevitably, due to covid, we have had to mark remembrance differently. On Sunday, instead of tens of thousands marching past the Cenotaph, just 26 veterans took part. Instead of people congregating on Whitehall in their thousands, the streets were quiet and still. The remembrance ceremony that I attended in my constituency this year was in Burnham-on-Sea. We attended in small numbers, I with the chairman of the Royal British Legion; at 9 am we laid our wreath, followed shortly afterwards by a group of councillors.
I actually thought it was quite poignant that things should be remembered in that way, but it also meant, for the first time in a long time for many of us, that we were at home at 11 o’clock and able to watch on television the coverage of the ceremony at the Cenotaph. It was the first time I had seen it for a number of years, and I congratulate all those who put together such a poignant and reflective ceremony worthy of the magnitude of that occasion, while respecting the constraints that we are under because of covid. For all that we bash the BBC, particularly from the Government side of the House, I thought that it got both its coverage and its commentary spot-on on Sunday.
It was also important, I thought, that we had a moment of remembrance this morning in the House. I know that the nation will have looked to us, as well as to the Cenotaph on Whitehall and to Westminster Abbey, for leadership at this important moment in the year. It was great to see that marked here in the Chamber.
There are three points that I want to make today: our appreciation of the support our armed forces receive from the public at large, from the service charities, and from the Royal British Legion in particular; our admiration for the service of those who continue to put their lives on the line in the defence of our great nation; and our reverence for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we may enjoy our freedom.
When I was in Afghanistan and Iraq, every time that we received a delivery of mail, there would be all the mail from our family and friends but there would also be hundreds of letters and parcels from people with no connection to the armed forces beyond their admiration for what young men and women were willing to go away to do. I can tell the House that when we were in remote operating bases such as I was in Sangin, the fact that somebody had taken the time to write a letter to a soldier they did not know, or to send some biscuits or sweets, meant an enormous amount. It reminds our armed forces always just how close they are to our nation’s hearts.
We have seen that ourselves in our constituencies over the last few months, where soldiers, sailors, airmen, airwomen and marines have been delivering testing centres, delivering personal protective equipment to the local hospital or, earlier in the year, stuffing sandbags. I can tell the House how much it means to our men and women when members of the community just go up and say, “Thank you. Well done. You’re doing a great job.” People do that, unprompted, because they admire those who wear the uniform of our armed forces in the service of our nation.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister refers to what happened in Afghanistan—the letters and things that went there. Seven years ago, I had the opportunity to represent my party in Afghanistan in meeting the Royal Irish Regiment. I knew their love of Tayto potato crisps, so I took lots of them with me and gave them out to the soldiers, both male and female, who were there. That brought them close to home, and that is really important whenever they are in Afghanistan serving their Queen and country.
James Heappey
The hon. Member is a keen supporter of our armed forces, and I can tell him that the great pleasure of serving in his beautiful corner of the world, as I have done, is not the stunning landscape or the Bushmills, but the Tayto chips in our packed lunches on the ranges.
Beyond the support of the community are our amazing service charities. So many of them do great work for our armed forces all year round, but at this time of year it is particularly important to reflect on the contribution of the Royal British Legion and the importance of its poppy appeal. It is an amazing commitment from poppy collectors all over the country that normally they go out in all weathers, from dawn till dusk, to sell poppies wherever they can. This year, of course, they have been more limited in what they have been able to do, but again and again I have seen in my constituency, and I know colleagues will have seen likewise, that they have done everything they can—within the law—to get out and raise as much money as they can for this important cause. We are all hugely grateful to them for doing so. I know that we would all want anybody watching today’s proceedings or reflecting on the fact that today is Armistice Day and they are yet to get their poppy to know that there is still time and that their money makes a real difference, in looking after both the families of those who have given their lives in conflict and those who have been forever scarred by their service.
That leads me to the service of our armed forces and the unlimited liability that they accept in the service of our nation—to do anything, anywhere, at any time, if this House and Her Majesty’s Government will it. That is an extraordinary thing to sign up and do. Some of us have done it for a few years. Some of us have done it for entire careers. Some of us have not done it at all, but to those who continue to serve, what matters is not whether a person has served but that they pause and reflect that as they go on with their life, and as their family are leading their lives, those who serve have accepted a responsibility on behalf of the nation to drop everything and leave at any moment to go and do whatever the nation requires anywhere in the world. That is an amazing act of selflessness that we should all be grateful for.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Minister talks about years of service. I wonder whether he would commend and congratulate my constituent, Mrs Barbara McGregor, who is due to retire in January next year after 44 years of service in the Royal Navy to Queen and country. Mrs McGregor is taking part in Armistice services this week, and she was meant to be leading the parade march in the Bridgend county borough this weekend but was not able to. Would the Minister commend her and congratulate her on her service, and on the fact that she has put everything—Queen and country—as a sole focus of her entire service in the Navy?
James Heappey
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman’s constituent on the longevity of her service and remark on what an amazing lifetime of commitment that is, with all the moments for her family, within her community and for her friends that she missed because she put her service of our country first. It is a quite extraordinary commitment, and I commend the hon. Gentleman for raising it in the House this afternoon.
Over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to see fast jet pilots serving in different corners of the European theatre, going out on missions where split-second decisions can be the difference between mission success and catastrophe. I visited helicopter crews in Mali operating in austere conditions, where it is dusty and dangerous and it is pretty hard to keep the Chinooks flying. I have seen air transport squadrons flying day after day and night after night to maintain the extraordinary efforts of our nation’s armed forces around the globe. I have seen troops operating in Estonia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and others on Salisbury plain preparing for a new deployment to Mali next month. I have seen training teams, big and small, working with our partners around the world.
The Royal Navy has had ships recently in the Barents sea, the Black sea, the eastern Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Atlantic, the Gulf and the Indian ocean. Our sailors and Royal Marines right now are responding to the humanitarian disaster that has followed in the wake of recent hurricanes in the Caribbean. We are rebuilding our sovereign carrier strike capability, and yesterday, I had the enormous honour of seeing the awe-inspiring work of Her Majesty’s Submarine Service, who keep our continuous at-sea deterrent hidden from view—silent but utterly deadly, and non-stop for 51 years.
That would just be business as usual for Defence, but this year, there has been an extraordinary contribution in supporting the Government’s response to covid as well. As we emerge from the covid crisis, there is an expectation that instability will follow in its wake, so our armed forces can look forward to even more activity in even more uncertain parts of the world, reassuring our allies, deterring our adversaries, demonstrating our resolve to uphold a rules-based international system and destroying those who mean us harm when they have to.
There are also a vast number of people who have served in our nation’s armed forces and who we must now look after as veterans. I pay tribute to the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), for all the work that he does in that regard. Our veterans community matters enormously. They are an important part of the moral component of fighting power. If you are serving in the armed forces now, your confidence to act decisively on behalf of the nation is motivated by how you see the nation supporting its veterans back at home at that time. You want to know that if you get hurt, or take a decision, the Government and the nation will stand behind you for the rest of your life, and that is a commitment that this Government are proud to make.
Finally, sacrifice. Last week I was in Egypt visiting HMS Albion, which was in Alexandria after a successful deployment to the eastern Mediterranean. While I was up on the north coast of Egypt, I went to the cemetery at El Alamein. Like all Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, it was immaculately maintained. It was vast, and all over it were grouped graves, which I understand is symptomatic of an armoured battle where entire tank crews or armoured personnel carrier crews died in one go. Very often their remains were almost impossible to separate, so they were buried with four or five headstones immediately adjacent to one another. That makes one pause and reflect on the horror of a battle of that intensity.
Then, as in so many other Commonwealth war graves cemeteries around the world, there were the unmarked graves of those who we will never know exactly who they were and who lie now underneath foreign soil to be remembered anonymously for all time. Then there were the Commonwealth graves, thousands of them, reminding us that this was an effort not just from all corners of the United Kingdom but from all corners of the Commonwealth. It was pleasing, therefore, to see that in Commonwealth war graves cemeteries around the world and in our embassies and high commissions on Sunday, there were moments of remembrance to reflect on the sacrifice of so many from other countries in the defence of our great nation.
This year, marking 75 years since the end of the second world war, has been a great opportunity for us to reflect not only on victory in Europe but on victory in Japan. That Pacific campaign is so often the one that is spoken about less, yet the acts of heroism and derring-do were no less important. Indeed, in many of the stories I have heard, the deprivation was far greater because of the environment in which the forces were operating. Since then, brave servicemen and women from the United Kingdom have given their lives in Korea, the Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is on those last two conflicts that I have my own personal reflections.
When you join up, you know there is a risk that the moment might come when you have to put yourself in a position where you might lose your life. When you stand there at Sandhurst, Dartmouth, Cranwell, Catterick or HMS Raleigh and the flag is there and the Queen is on the wall and the Bible is put in your hand, you are filled with confidence that you are on a career path that is worthy and great, but when you are behind a wall and the rounds are hitting the other side or an improvised explosive device has just gone off and you know that you have to stand up close with the enemy and do your duty, that is a moment when you realise a lot about yourself. It is also a moment, sadly, from which people do not always return, and their loss is something that I feel keenly every time I pause and reflect on my experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I know that for the entire veterans community there will be a face that is in their minds when the Last Post is blown and the two minutes’ silence is followed. In communities across the country, there will be people who are remembered because they were there one month and then, six months later when their friends and comrades returned, there were no longer there. They were just a name on a war memorial. Those names are lives cut down in their prime and as we pause, over Remembrance Weekend and on Armistice Day today, let us never forget that they turned up at a recruiting office and embarked on their military careers, believing that what they were going to do would make a difference for our country and protect our freedom. They knew in the back of their mind that perhaps they might be called upon to give their life, but they hoped and even expected that it would never be them. Hundreds of thousands have answered our nation’s call and given their lives in doing so. We will remember them.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call the spokesman for the Opposition, I thank the Minister for his brevity in his opening speech. It will be obvious that there are over 50 colleagues trying to catch my eye, and that we have only three hours for this debate. I therefore have to start with a time limit on Back Bench speeches of six minutes. That will be reduced later in the debate, and people who are further down the list must recognise the reality that they are unlikely to be called, but I am happy to call John Healey.
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Johnny Mercer)
I thank the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), in what I believe is his first appearance at the Dispatch Box, for a heartfelt summing-up of an interesting debate. For someone who came to the House to try to reset the relationship between this country, her military and her veterans, it has been an incredibly encouraging couple of hours. It is a privilege to close this debate on remembrance, to mark Armistice Day. Listening to some of the remarkable stories of service from colleagues reminds me, however, that war, however great, huge in scale, distant and complex, is fundamentally personal.
We are very good in this country at remembering. There are few places on earth more moving than a war memorial on Remembrance Sunday, but this year has been very different. Many veterans who would normally attend were self-isolating. I pay tribute to their efforts. I pay particular tribute to the Royal British Legion. A narrative has developed among some in my cohort of veterans against the larger charities in recent years. I must say that we would be in an incredibly dark place without the supreme commitment of charities such as the Royal British Legion over many, many years to those who have served this country. I pay tribute to their efforts, particularly at this time of year.
I want to respond to a couple of points made by the hon. Member for Islwyn and by hon. Members who made speeches today. I will write to the hon. Gentleman about the specific numbers of reservists, as I do not have that number to hand. Reserves are far more integrated into regular forces than ever before, but it is something that we can always do better. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will write to him about that. Charity funding is something that we have discussed a number of times. Charities clearly face a challenging time—there are no two ways about that—and the increase for services in charities is almost at the same rate. I am very clear that this nation has a duty to its service personnel and veterans. It is not a problem that should be farmed out to charities. This nation is doing more than it ever has done before on a statutory footing for those who serve, but I think the answer in the end is a blend between statutory and charity provision. That is more for another day.
If I may briefly talk about legislation that was raised by the hon. Member for Islwyn and a number of colleagues. I can confirm—there was a manifesto promise and I have campaigned for this for some years now—that unless the armed forces covenant means something to the people who need it and unless it is a tool in the hands of those who need it in this country, it is not really worth what we would like it to be. The truth is that some great work has been done, but it is clear that we need to legislate in the manner in which the hon. Gentleman speaks to. I can confirm that the Government will be bringing forward an armed forces Bill next year to legislate and further enshrine into law the armed forces covenant.
I want to get through a few of the contributions today that I thought were particularly telling. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) made really valid points about mental health support. He is right about mental health support and how much more money has gone into it now, but until every single serviceman and servicewomen leaves the military and knows where they can turn for mental support, knows that care pathway and that point of access, we still have some work to do and we will not stop until we get there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) talked about the huge part played by military families. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) talked again about covenant legislation and the issue around foreign and Commonwealth visa fees. My views on that are well known, however unpopular they may be within Government. I have had a personal view for some time, which has not changed since I became a Minister. I am confident that the Government will do their duty towards our foreign and Commonwealth brothers and sisters who served with us abroad over many years.
The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) talked about how life is never the same. It really is
“At the going down of the sun and in the morning”
every day for our veterans’ families. That is why remembrance is so important.
I pay special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) for her contribution on the female experience of the military. I reiterate that it is not where I want it to be, either in the military or in veteran circles. We have more work to do on that. I say to her that things are changing, but she has a very powerful and relevant voice and I urge her to keep going in her campaigning on that issue.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and his family history, and to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), who talked about his grandmother.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for her comments on Northern Ireland. I have repeatedly made it clear that my views and my commitment to this issue are completely unchanged from before I was a Minister. We heard today, and I will come on to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) in a moment, about how that conflict was painted very viscerally for individuals. There will be no resiling from the commitments that have been made. I have made that clear on a number of occasions. I am acutely aware that there comes a moment where that has to granulate into a reality for those who serve. We are fast approaching that moment. The Bill I brought forward last week had important commitments to that generation for the first time from a Government from this Dispatch Box, but there is more to do. The Prime Minister is crystal clear in his commitment on this issue and I am confident he will follow through.
Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and I have been friends for far too long. [Interruption.] He has finally woken up. As conflict has changed, with cameras and so on, it is easy for people to come home and think, “My generation did x, y and z in Afghanistan” or wherever it may be, but I would just say to him that all we ever did was try to stand on the shoulders of our predecessors who fought in incredibly difficult environments and incredibly difficult and complex situations.
There was the story about the little girl. There is something about little girls and conflicts. I was out with a friend last weekend and we talked about what remembrance means. I said, “Does anything stick with you from those days?” and he remembered a little girl who similarly lost both arms and both legs and was dying. Her father would not give the little girl to us because he wanted her to be a martyr and would not let us save her life. There is something about little girls in conflict that gets very difficult.
What is remembrance to me? I will be honest: some parts of remembrance I do find pretty difficult. When I first came back from some of the roughest tours in Afghanistan, I simply could not watch, because the discrepancy between what people said in this place and how it actually felt to serve, or to be a veteran or family of a veteran in this country was too great. However, we are getting better.
The creation of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs is a significant moment, but I say very gently to colleagues both inside and outside Government: do not underestimate what this means to people who are watching this debate. Do not underestimate the commitments we have made not only to the generation I was talking about from Northern Ireland, but to all those who have served. There is a community out there who are the best of us. They care so much about this country that they actually signed up to serve. Some of their experiences have been wholly unacceptable. We are changing that, but we must redouble our efforts because, if we get it wrong now, having given them hope, that feeling that I used to have will only become worse.
Ultimately, all these things are political. Enshrining the armed forces covenant into law is a political choice. Reconciliation in Northern Ireland is a political choice. So you can remember properly, not through Remembrance Day itself and photographs and all the rest of it, but by supporting those efforts, by parking selfish ambition or any personal agenda with one special interest and by taking difficult decisions for the greater good. That greater good was what those patriots fought for and died to protect. That is how you remember and truly honour their sacrifice—for it is actions, not words, that matter. We will remember them.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We will remember them and we will continue to remember them and be grateful for their service and sacrifice. This has been an absolutely superb debate. Without their service and sacrifice, this debate and our democracy could easily have been extinguished.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered remembrance, UK armed forces and society.