Explosive Ordnance Disposal Community

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

It is an honour to speak under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I commend my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for bringing forward this important debate. I have the honour of representing the Liberal Democrats as defence spokesperson in her stead.

I never served on the ground in Afghanistan and I never met Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid. He served in Afghanistan and disarmed 64 improvised explosive devices during a tour of duty in 2009. Undoubtedly, he saved many of our brave soldiers and civilians in doing so. He had been deployed to Afghanistan from his unit in Didcot, just a few miles from my own unit at RAF Benson. Staff Sergeant Schmid was killed while disarming his 65th device in November 2009. On the final day of his deployment, he was 30 years old. The day before, he had telephoned his five-year-old stepson, who had told him, “Daddy, it is time to come home.” It is one of so many personal stories of heroism and tragedy that our soldiers brought back from Afghanistan.

In truth, I do not know why Staff Sergeant Schmid’s story gripped me so tightly, but I used to drive past the Vauxhall barracks in Didcot every weekend from RAF Benson. I always recall that somewhere inside was Olaf’s family, whose hero never came home. One particular family of so many.

The words of my gallant colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, stirred up some lost memories from my own career. She mentioned the enduring threat of the explosive remnants of war to the Ukrainian agricultural community. I recall a tour of the battlefields of France and Belgium in 2015, where I learned that even after 100 years, farmers and their cattle are regularly killed by leftover munitions.

In 2010 I served a deployment to the Falkland Islands. The drive between Mount Pleasant airfield and Stanley took me past miles and miles of land demarcated by warning signs alerting me to minefields. These mines do not always stay where they are planted; they can move over time, given the harshness of the weather systems in the Falkland Islands.

Having left the armed forces in 2023, I am proud now to stand with the Liberal Democrats, and together we stand for all victims of conflict—participants and innocents. Anti-personnel mines are a particularly sinister tool of war, often maiming and killing long after conflicts have ended. Often, those affected are civilians, including children.

Our Ukrainian sister party, Servant of the People, has continuously raised the issue of cluster munitions and their continuing impact on civilians since Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion in 2022. The “Landmine Monitor” report published in November 2024 shows that there were at least 5,757 casualties from landmines and the explosive remnants of war in 2023, an increase of 22% since 2022. I thank hon. Members from Northern Ireland for reminding me that this is an issue not just overseas, but here in the United Kingdom—something that our predecessor Lord Ashdown spoke so passionately and eloquently about.

The Liberal Democrats recognise that there are lasting impacts to being struck by an explosive device such as a mine or unexploded ordnance. Often, those impacts are lifelong, both for the victim and for their loved ones. We therefore call for a full programme of support to provide medical and psychological assistance to victims and families of those impacted by such devices. We celebrate the work of the explosive ordnance disposal community and praise their courage in supporting communities impacted by mines and other warfare. We call on the Government to restore the international development budget to 0.7% of national income, as it was the last time the Liberal Democrats were in government.