Military Covenant

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and David Crausby

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

My dad landed in France and ran up the beach on D-day. If he was alive today, he would tell us that it was the fastest that he ran in his entire life. He would freely admit that, as he crouched in the landing craft heading for shore, with bullets pinging off the infrastructure, he was petrified of the doors opening. When they finally opened, his stomach turned over, and he went up that beach in full kit faster than Linford Christie. He made it unscathed to the top, but the next day he had most of his stomach blown out by a German shell in a field just beyond the beach. He suffered for it every day of his life for the next 48 years. In return, he received a small pension from the Government and spent the rest of his life worrying about losing it. He was grateful for the money. He spent most of it on beer, if the truth were known, but he enjoyed every pint. Was he worth it? Damn right he was, every penny, because without him and his mates, there would be a foreign flag flying over this Parliament— assuming, that is, that this building existed at all. We owe him, along with thousands of his comrades, a debt of honour. We must never forget that.

The very same applies to our present-day forces. They may be small in number, but when they put their lives on the line we have a duty to look after them, and their families.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the military power of our great country has been, is and always will be a projection of our economic power, which has been devastated by the mismanagement of the last Government?

[Mr Crausby]

I will get to that point.

We do not expect our forces to join a trade union or allow them to go on strike, so they are entitled to be treated differently. My dad lay in that French field for two days before he was found, but he was eventually flown back to the UK and put back together. When he recovered, he voted Labour, and he never missed the opportunity to vote Labour in every election until the day he died. I make that point simply because this is not a party political issue. Many of his comrades returned to vote Conservative, and Liberal, and other weird things, as was their entitlement, and some did not bother to vote at all. So it is shameful to turn the matter of the covenant into a point-scoring party political issue, as the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) did.

We all know that we are in difficult circumstances, but I do not know what my dad would say about cutting soldiers’ allowances at the same time as Barclays pay their investment bankers 20% more—not to mention making Afghan veterans redundant by e-mail, which is even worse than when John Major made Bosnian front-line veterans redundant by post. I suppose that the MOD has at least come up to date.