Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

Let me make it very clear that the next SDSR is being carried out next year. Work has not begun on it this year. Obviously, a certain amount of preparation, thinking and evidence gathering is going on, but we have not started on the review this year—that awaits next year.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

3. What steps he has taken to improve the process for applying to join the reserves.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Julian Brazier)]

All the reserve forces have worked to simplify their application procedures, including through streamlined online processes and shorter medical forms. We have increased capacity in Army recruitment and selection centres, and more mentoring and support for candidates is being provided by their chosen unit. Early indications of those measures are promising, and Army Reserve enlistments over the summer quarter, traditionally the quarter when enlistments are lowest by far, are running at roughly double the levels of last year.

[Damian Collins]

I welcome my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour to his appointment as reserves Minister. The Gurkhas are a much-valued force within the British Army. Would the MOD be prepared to consider creating a Gurkha company within the reserves, if that would help to boost the number of Gurkhas who seek to join the reserves after their retirement or of their children who seek to do so?

[Mr Brazier]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind welcoming of my unexpected mobilisation. We are indeed looking at ways in which we can get more ex-Gurkhas to join the Army Reserve, but there are legal and practical reasons against establishing a separate Gurkha reserve unit. Given their experience, there are great benefits in ex-Gurkha personnel joining a whole range of Army Reserve units. Gurkhas leaving the Army receive briefs on reserve service as part of their transition support, and we have a programme of using ex-Gurkha reservists to visit Gurkha units to provide case studies of what can be expected.

Gurkha Pensions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and to the terrific work she has done leading the inquiry on Gurkha pensions and welfare, which has been a considerable piece of work. Hon. Members will know that all-party groups do not have the resources of Select Committees or formal Committees of the House; nor do they have huge secretariats and teams to support them, so holding such an inquiry is a considerable undertaking. I congratulate her on that.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend is being too generous. He generously made his office available to support me and I am very grateful for that.

[Damian Collins]

It is kind of my hon. Friend to mention that. I thank Daniel Kirkpatrick from my office, who worked on the inquiry.

Like my hon. Friend, I have served on Select Committees and on big inquiries that attracted a lot of attention from the outside world, but I have never attended hearings that attracted such a large audience from the public as did the Gurkha welfare inquiry hearings. Hundreds of members of the Gurkha community and veterans came to listen to the evidence sessions to make their point, which clearly showed the strong feeling in the Gurkha community that serious outstanding issues have to be considered.

As Member of Parliament for Folkestone, I am proud to represent a significant Gurkha and Nepalese community. Shorncliffe barracks in Folkestone is the home barracks for the Royal Gurkha Rifles. We take an active interest in their work and they have conducted themselves with great distinction on numerous tours of duty in Afghanistan and service throughout the world for the British armed forces. We are extremely grateful for everything they have done. The Gurkhas clearly play a unique role in the British Army and we greatly benefit from that.

My hon. Friend set out clearly the issues that the inquiry covered, on Gurkha pensions and Gurkha welfare. I shall not repeat everything she said, but she hit on the most important aspect, which is that there needs to be fairness in the way we deal with those issues from the past. We are approaching the 200th anniversary of the start of this country’s cordial relationship with Nepal. This year, which marks the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, is the right time to reflect on the service of the Gurkhas to the British armed forces, their service to this country and the amount we have benefited from that service. We should also consider what outstanding historical issues need to be resolved.

I supported the Gurkha campaign to give Gurkhas the right to live and settle in the United Kingdom. Service to this country through the armed forces should in itself be a means of qualifying for British citizenship; I see nothing wrong with that. Indeed, many people around the world who qualify for British citizenship do not have the track record of service to our country that Gurkha veterans have. If someone is prepared to fight and die in the cause of Great Britain and its allies, they should have the right to live here. That is what the Gurkhas now have.

My hon. Friend was right to focus on, in particular, the rights of the 7,000 or so ex-Gurkhas who qualify for no pension at all because they did not complete 15 years’ service. Many of them are veterans of conflicts. Many are veterans of the campaign in Malaya. When that ended, they returned to discover that they no longer had a role and they were made redundant from their post in the Army. As they did not qualify, they did not receive a pension. We should consider whether they should receive a pension, based on the number of years they served short of 15 years, as compensation for their service. We considered that matter in great depth during the inquiry.

A number of Gurkhas were dismissed from their post—many of them believe unfairly, particularly with respect to the incident in Hawaii, which the committee looked at. We ask the Ministry of Defence to look again at that incident to consider whether Gurkhas might have been dismissed unfairly, and therefore to consider whether they should qualify for some pension, based on the number of years they served. As my hon. Friend said, we should also consider the case of Gurkhas who qualify for no pension who were medically discharged from the armed forces through no fault of their own.

We cannot rewrite the terms and conditions of 30 or 40 years ago or more, and no one has alleged that the Ministry of Defence or the Government have in any way not honoured the letter of the commitments made to the Gurkhas at the time, but the question is whether the spirit of those commitments was fair and whether decisions were taken some years ago that would not be taken today—if Ministers were taking those decisions now, they would act differently and in a way that was fairer and that recognised the significant contribution that those Gurkhas made to our armed forces, even though they did not complete 15 years’ service. It is sad to see people who served in our armed forces with distinction but fell short of 15 years’ service living on a pittance and in poor conditions. We would not want that for any veterans of our armed forces, and we do not want it for the Gurkha community.

It is important to consider providing more support for the Gurkha Welfare Trust to support Gurkhas living independently in this country. The fines that the Government have levied on the banks as a result of the manipulation of the LIBOR rates could be used to support military charities. The Gurkha Welfare Trust would be an extremely deserving cause and using some of that money to support Gurkha veterans would be extremely appropriate. I ask the Government seriously to consider that as an opportunity to meet some of the funding commitments that the inquiry sets out. We live in extremely straitened times, and however much we would like to resolve some of these outstanding Gurkha issues, we cannot pretend that there are limitless funds with which to do so. It would perhaps therefore be appropriate to use some of the LIBOR fine money for that purpose.

Through the Department for International Development, we are able to support Nepal as a country, an ally and a friend. Any commitment we could give to making investments through the DFID budget to support welfare and health services in Nepal that provided equality of service and was attractive to ex-Gurkhas could encourage some of them to stay in the country or to return there. Many of them would like to do that, as they said during the course of the inquiry. That would be an appropriate use of resources that would further help to solve the problem.

Encouraging Gurkhas who want to return home to do so, and providing some of them with a decent standard of living through a fair pension that is linked to their years of service in the armed forces, is not only the right thing to do but could save the Treasury funds in the long run, because ex-Gurkhas might then no longer be as reliant on benefits as some of them inevitably have to be currently, as their own income is so low due to receiving so little support from their pension for the service that they gave.

When Her Majesty the Queen made her state visit to Ireland, she said in her speech at Dublin castle that looking back at the history of Anglo-Irish relations, there are some things one would do differently and some things that one would not have done at all. When we look back at our very long friendship with the Nepalese nation and the wonderful years of service that Gurkhas have given to our country, I think we will say that there are some incidences where we would have done certain things differently or perhaps not have done them at all. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock presents the report from the all-party group’s inquiry, and as we approach the Gurkhas’ 200th anniversary and commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, this is the right time to consider some of those outstanding issues and settle some of those old grievances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Williams]

That is most helpful. I dare not mention the Barnett formula in this debate, but I was wondering whether such money might flow into Wales. I thank my hon. Friend for his very kind offer.

The major subject of the report was the equalisation of pensions. There is no point trying to skate around it: like other hon. Members, I find it very difficult to recommend a move towards equalising pensions, because it is very hard retrospectively to alter pension arrangements that were entered into voluntarily by people when they were recruited into the Gurkha regiments.

The report mentioned a number of difficult issues, which are obviously of real concern to Gurkha veterans, that I think the Government could do something about. If the veterans were funded by some of the LIBOR money that is meant to be used to support the work of the military covenant, that would be very well received by the Gurkhas. Let me run quickly through such issues.

[Damian Collins]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the inquiry highlighted a number of terms and conditions that seem extremely archaic? For example, it was not until the 1990s that Gurkhas were allowed to marry non-Gurkhas.

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend is quite right. That is a point that I was going to come on to. Not only were Gurkhas not allowed to marry non-Gurkha women; if they did, they were discharged from the Army and, as a result, had no pension at all. That affects some of the Gurkha veterans that my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock mentioned.

We have an arrangement with the Sultan of Brunei, who runs a very light-touch taxation system. Our Gurkha soldiers, being based in Brunei, were not liable to tax, but the Ministry of Defence took some money off their pay in management fees. That was equivalent to a tax. The MOD could look at that again, because it was iniquitous. Gurkhas serving in this country were given dummy national insurance numbers, but they did not get the benefits that a national insurance number and paying national insurance in this country should generate.

Another issue is health care in Nepal. Although the pension of the Gurkhas in Nepal was increased to address that issue, they have to pay for their health care. As I understand it, Gurkhas in the Indian army do not have to pay for their health care. The Ministry of Defence could look at that issue as well.

During the evidence to the inquiry, there was criticism of the Gurkha Welfare Trust and its work in Nepal. I have talked to a constituent who was quite senior in the trust, but he said that he was out of touch with what was going on at the moment and referred me to somebody else. However, I have not had time to talk to that gentleman yet. The criticism was made that the funds of the Gurkha Welfare Trust were not used entirely for the benefit of Gurkha soldiers in Nepal and their families. A review of the work of the Gurkha Welfare Trust would perhaps not be inappropriate.

Gurkhas were encouraged to invest in Equitable Life to increase their pensions. I wonder whether the Gurkhas who did invest in Equitable Life have received the benefits that the Government have given to other people who invested in it to compensate them for their losses, especially if they were advised by the MOD or some other organisation to save through that route.

Once again, we come back to the main grievance of the Gurkha people, which is the equalisation of pensions. There are some quite young Gurkha retirees in Brecon who are in good employment, as the hon. Member for Aldershot described. They tell me that they were senior NCOs or warrant officers in the Gurkha regiment, but because only part of their service was after 1997, the pensions that they receive are a lot lower than the pensions of people who were in British regiments. They are really aggrieved about that, as one can understand. They put their lives on the line for this country, yet they are not getting the same rewards as many of their fellow soldiers.

It is difficult for the inquiry or the MOD to make a move at the moment because there is an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. As far as I am concerned, the matter is in limbo and it would be difficult for anybody to come to a conclusion. There is much in the report and the work that we have done that will be welcomed by the Gurkhas, but their great concern is that there will be no move to equalise pensions.

First World War (Commemoration)

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I certainly agree. The BBC has a difficult balance to strike. In my view, it is doing that extremely well. I particularly commend its efforts to shine a light on some of the perhaps least well explored elements of the great war. We all know about the mud and the trenches. We know rather less about the home front. I hope that, as we proceed through the four-year centenary, we will have a more holistic view of what it meant to be alive between 1914 and 1918.

The UK’s commemoration will begin on Monday 4 August in Glasgow, where the JoyFest of the Commonwealth games will be replaced by the solemnity of Glasgow cathedral and remembrance in George square. In the evening, the evocative Commonwealth War Graves Commission site at St Symphorien near Mons has been chosen for an event based on reconciliation, which we know the public want and expect to see. German and Belgian representatives will join us, as will Heads of State and Government and the families of those interred, irrespective of nationality.

On the same day, the Step Short project in Folkestone will unveil its memorial arch over the road of remembrance, down which troops marched to embarkation. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on bringing that important project to maturity. It is a flagship for thousands of independent projects up and down the country that have been inspired by the centenary.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words about the Step Short project. Does he agree that the debate is timely because the memorial arch is being erected today in Folkestone?

[Dr Murrison]

I am pleased to hear my hon. Friend’s news. I have been watching the project with much interest. I know that it will be an important part of our commemoration. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), it is important to commemorate all elements of the centenary. The magic of Folkestone is the ability to plot the course of that final trip for so many thousands of servicemen as they embarked for France. Many, of course, never returned but many did—the majority did. Folkestone in those years held a particular place in the hearts of the service community, either because it was the point of embarkation or because, more happily, it was the point of return.

At 11 o’clock, the hour at which Britain entered the war on 4 August, the day will be closed with a vigil centred on Westminster abbey, which will run in parallel with similar services at St Anne’s cathedral in Belfast, Llandaff cathedral in Cardiff and other churches and faith communities across the country. At the same time, public buildings, workplaces and homes will be encouraged to participate in Lights Out to refer to the observation by Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey on the eve of war that the lamps were going out across Europe and they would not be lit again in his time. As part of that, the Royal British Legion plans to sell a million candles to remember a million fallen, each one extinguished at 11 pm. Here is the clever bit. In the darkness, a single lamp will be left burning, since hope never dies, and it never did.

The centenary is a marathon, not a sprint. Following 4 August, we have the 2014 season of remembrance, Gallipoli in April next year, Jutland and the Somme in 2016 and Passchendaele in 2017. In 2018, Amiens to Armistice will mark the last 100 days of the war. Interspersed will be myriad anniversaries from Coronel to Cambrai marking the waypoints of war, each commemorated appropriately with international participants and national units and their successors.

Big anniversaries, with their attendant large-scale national events, are pegs on which to hang the clothes of the centenary. The richness will come from 1,000 projects, from the flagship rebirth of the Imperial War museum on 19 July, to the Woodland Trust centenary forests to be planted in each of the four nations, to the small local initiatives that I heard about a week ago in Norfolk, as the guest of my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson). Many of those are funded from the £56 million already allocated by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Many are part of the First World War Centenary Partnership, which now has 3,000 member organisations in 50 countries, and many already have the active involvement of constituency MPs.

The 14-18 Now cultural programme will add granularity and texture to the centenary and bring it alive. May I pick out its letter to an unknown soldier project, a literary memorial centred on the enigmatic statue of a soldier reading a letter on platform 1 at Paddington station? The statue makes us wonder what is in the soldier’s letter. Members of the public are now invited to write that letter. All sorts of celebrities have already done so, and MPs certainly should.

I recently sent a note to all right hon. and hon. Members about the centenary poppy campaign, which is a great way for MPs to get involved locally and in the process both proliferate wild flowers and raise money to help the Royal British Legion to support today’s service community. I urge colleagues to take up the Commonwealth War Graves Commission offer to visit its sites in this country. There is most likely to be at least one such site in or close to each UK constituency. There are at least two Commonwealth War Graves Commission commissioners in the House today. I know that they will underscore that point. It is a revelation to many of us how many Commonwealth War Graves Commission sites there are in this country. They are not by any manner of means all on the western front.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who reminded us in his excellent speech that the losses of the first world war occurred not just in Gallipoli or in the trenches, but at home as well. The raid on the Hartlepools was a terrible story that is well remembered now and had a huge impact on people at the time. In Folkestone in 1917, more than 60 people were killed in a single air raid. German planes that were looking for London dropped their bombs on the way back to the continent, killing innocent women and children—including children who were only a few months old—in the process. That was a tragic and terrible incident, and we should remember that there were important losses at home, as well as those on the western front. One important thing we will find during this centenary period is that we have forgotten lots of things about the war. I am talking about stories of individual heroism and of the way communities worked together, which were not part of the big narrative and are not found in the history books, but which are very important local, community stories. During these centenary years we will have the chance to tell them again.

My main focus as the MP for Folkestone and Hythe—I also declare my interest as chairman of Step Short, the first world war centenary charity in Folkestone—has been to mark the role that Folkestone played in the war effort as the main port of embarkation from these islands to the western front. There were more than 10 million movements of service personnel through Folkestone port during the war; those were people from all around the world, as well as from all corners of these islands. During this centenary we should remember that more than 1 million men from the Indian subcontinent, as well as people from China and south America, fought in the allied war effort and cause during the war. As part of Folkestone’s commemorations, we are certainly remembering those people, too.

We should also remember that we not only sent people out to fight, but gave comfort to people seeking refuge. Folkestone received tens of thousands of refugees from Belgium in the first weeks of the war; these people were fleeing for their lives, fleeing persecution and fleeing the advance of the enemy troops through their country— through their homeland. They came to this country and we gave them a home. These people went all across the UK, but tens of thousands of them stayed in Folkestone during the war. A great painting, painted in 1915, commemorating the arrival of the Belgian refugees sits in the town hall in Folkestone, and they are a very important part of our community’s story about the work people did during the war.

The main community effort we have supported to mark the centenary has been the building of a memorial arch that will stand over the route that those millions of soldiers marched to the ships waiting in the harbour to take them on their journey to France. The walk down the Slope road, as it was known then—after the war it was renamed the Road of Remembrance—to the harbour was for many the final journey leaving this country. Wilfred Owen spent his last night in England at the Grand hotel in Folkestone, billeted there before making that journey. So we wanted to do something that marked that route and that journey, and we are building a memorial arch over the route they took. As I mentioned earlier, this debate is particularly timely because that arch is being assembled today and will be in place by the end of the evening. On 4 August, His Royal Highness Prince Harry will be coming to Folkestone to dedicate the arch as part of the centenary commemorations and that centenary day itself.

I remember going on a battlefield tour when I was at school, 25 years ago, with my history teacher Mr Fitzgerald, who is still head of history at St Mary’s Roman Catholic high school in Herefordshire. He has been running exactly the same battlefield tour for 25 years, taking schoolboys and schoolgirls to Tyne Cot and Vimy ridge to see things for themselves and walk in the footsteps of the soldiers. That trip had a profound impact on me; one has to stand on the site and experience it. Our school always went in the autumn. Typically for that part of Europe, it is often blowy, cold and wet. Visitors get the tiniest insight into and glimpse of what it might have been like to have been standing there during the war. We could never truly know what it was like; we cannot imagine, in our lives today, what it must have been like to fight in that war. There is something sacred about these places, which is why it is right that the Government are supporting schools and encouraging them to take such trips, in order to get more schools to go to the battlefields to see them for themselves.

That is why we in Folkestone also wanted to dedicate a space that was relevant to the war and the experience of the soldiers—the place they marched down. They marched down the Road of Remembrance, they could see the ships in the harbour waiting to take them; they could see France, where they were going; and, in the distance, they were probably able to hear the guns at the front, which were only 100 miles away. They were not looking with wonder across the channel at the boats crossing; they were looking across a frontier to a very hostile place they were journeying to.

Throughout this debate we have heard stories of people who won great awards for their gallantry—Victoria Crosses and other military medals. Many of them were not servicemen before the war. They were not professional, trained soldiers. They gave up their lives at home, their families and their livelihoods, and they sacrificed themselves. They demonstrated incredible bravery, fighting for themselves, their communities and their families to defend their homeland. They demonstrated the incredible depths of resilience and bravery that probably everyone has. When we consider this first world war centenary period, we must ask ourselves whether we could make those sacrifices today. Could we do as people did 100 years ago? Are we too cynical? I think the answer is absolutely not. What the first world war demonstrated was the incredible resilience of people and the sacrifices that they were prepared to make in a good cause. The same is true of the 9/11 attacks in New York. Did those firemen wake up that morning thinking that they would have to run into a collapsing building while people were running out of it? They did their job out of duty and at the moment in time they were called to do it. People did the same in the first world war, and that is one of the things that we remember.

Another important reason for remembering the first world war is the message that emerged, which was that we were all in it together. It was a war fought not just by armies but by societies and nations. We relied on everyone’s efforts. There was mass conscription into the armed forces. We had a field army of more than a million people, all of whom were trained and fit. They had a diet and an education that enabled them to take part in the war effort. The people who could not fight in the war worked in the munitions factories and in the fields. Everyone was part of the war effort. The ability to put an army in the field and to win such a war required the participation of the entire population. It also required people of genius, inspiration and ingenuity to design new weapons, new techniques and new technologies that would make winning that war possible. To fight and win such a conflict required the resources of the entire population, and the entire country had to be strong.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an impressive speech. Will he join me in saluting the work of the charity Never Such Innocence, which is marking the massive contribution made by the Dominions, as they then were, towards the great war? It is ably led by Edward Wild and Lady Lucy French, whose great-great grandfather was Field Marshall Sir John French.

[Damian Collins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was about to mention Never Such Innocence. The charity, which has been working closely with Australia house, has done a fantastic project of work this year, and I hope that it continues. I know that, like me, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is also a supporter of the charity. I am grateful that the charity made a contribution to the Step Short project in Folkestone, and that it provided support to military charities such as Combat Stress.

It is interesting to note that Combat Stress marks its own centenary in 2019. It was formed to deal with the unique challenges, injuries and needs of people coming back from the war. It was only after the first world war that we really understood the nature of stress—mental stress from the battlefield—and the fact that it required special treatment. Combat Stress is a very relevant and important charity in its own right, and it is significant that it should be linked to the good work of Never Such Innocence.

I also want to underline the role of the Commonwealth in the war effort, especially that of the Anzac troops. Anzac day is marked now in increasingly growing numbers in this country as well as around the world and is of huge significance and importance to the history of the Commonwealth as well as to Australia and New Zealand.

I want to come back to the point about how there was this sense during the war of us all being in it together. The lesson of the war was that we need a strong society, and that to function properly there should be rewards and benefits for the whole of society coming out of that war. We also learned that the ability of a nation to fight wars in the future would depend on the strength not just of the armed forces, but of the whole country, and that our duties and responsibilities lie beyond our shores. We should fight not just wars of defence but wars to uphold the values of democracy and freedom that we have in our country. We went to war not just to defend ourselves but to liberate other people from oppression. There can be no nobler cause than that.

The first world war changed the whole of this country; it changed society. Anyone who had lived in the 20 years before the war would not have seen a huge amount of change before 1914. If they had come back to this country 20 years after the war had ended, they would have noticed that society had changed for ever. That is why these centenaries are so important. It is to remember that period of change.

Finally, I thank the Minister and the Government for the support they have given to the Step Short project. I also thank the Ministry of Defence, which is providing parading soldiers and the band of the Brigade of Gurkhas for the commemorations in Folkestone on 4 August. Soldiers will march through the memorial arch in the steps of the soldiers who went to war. It is right that the armed forces should be involved in the commemoration of the war. We are in no way seeking to make this a military occasion or to glorify war; we just want to remember that it is the servicemen who made the sacrifice and got on the ships to go and fight, and they did so in the service of their country and in the service of others. It is right that they should be involved in the commemorations that day.

I am also grateful for the support of Shepway district council and Kent county council, who provided financial support for the project. More than half of the money that has been raised by Step Short has been given as private donations. Private organisations have raised money. It is right that local authorities should support heritage projects in their areas, but also that we should seek broader support. It is right to recognise that the greater part of the support that we have received has come from other sources.

I thank the property company Lend Lease, which has provided its services for free to build the memorial arch in Folkestone. They have given a dedicated team to project manage it. That is an enormous contribution on its part. The company exemplifies the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) that this is a Commonwealth effort. Lend Lease is based in Australia, but it is giving its resources to support the project in Folkestone. It has also led on the work to restore the Imperial War museum.

I would also like to thank—this is a bit of an Oscar thank you speech, but I would like to get it on the record—the large number of organisations that have helped us with our centenary project in Folkestone. The National Army museum has brought an exhibition to Folkestone that tells the story from enlistment to embarkation. Parts of their collections have been brought to Folkestone and the museum has worked with local historians and history groups to put on the exhibition, which opened on Tuesday this week and will run for 10 months. It provides an excellent educational resource telling the story of going to war. I hope that the people who come to Folkestone to see the memorial arch will also take a look at that exhibition and that it will complement the exhibition that will be put on in the Sassoon room in Folkestone library shortly, which tells the story of the Folkestone community during the war in pictures.

I also urge all my Kent colleagues to look at the excellent online resource called Kent in World War One. We are asking people to share their data and information, pictures and stories. Such local projects and the online work of the Imperial War museum are merging official data—war records, service records and medal records and charts—with personal data such as diaries, letters, stories and photographs. That will create a wonderful resource, bringing those stories together.

It is fantastic not just to hear a citation for bravery and read someone’s war record but to hear a personal story. The Kent in World War One project maps that on local streets so that people can see what people who lived in the road where they live now did in the war, bringing the stories alive in the community. It is an excellent way of marking the centenary of the first world war.

I am sure that 4 August will be a day of moving, fitting and appropriate commemorations right across the United Kingdom, but in many ways it will be the start of a process. We will see more and more such commemorations on the important anniversaries that fall throughout the four and a half years up to the centenary of Armistice day in 2018. It is a programme that we should all celebrate and be proud of.

First World War Commemoration

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

It was a pleasure to listen to the speech by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) and I commend him for the work he has done. I am sure that he would agree that the stated desire of the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach Enda Kenny to visit a war grave together during the run-up to the centenary is an excellent way of marking the fact that Irishmen, both Unionist and nationalist, fought together for a good cause in the first world war and we should not forget that.

The first world war has captured the imagination of the public. It might have passed from living memory, but people’s desire to find out about it, to walk in the footsteps of the soldiers by visiting the battlefields and to gain an insight into what it must have been like is as keen now as it has probably been in living memory. Perhaps that is because we want to challenge ourselves. In the same circumstances, would we be as brave as people were then?

Throughout the debate, people have mentioned the “Blackadder” version of history and asked whether we are too cynical now as a nation to make the sacrifices that people did then. Through the course of the first world war centenary years we will remember the sacrifices of those who gave their lives and of those who served, both on the front line and to support the people on the front line. It is a reminder of the incredible sacrifices people make and the incredible endurance people have in extreme circumstances. People rise to that challenge generation after generation and it is right that we should remember the sacrifices of the first world war, which were on such an enormous scale.

I remember reading the remarks of my predecessor, Philip Sassoon, who was an MP during the first world war. He felt that the battles at places such as Waterloo seemed Lilliputian compared with Neuve Chapelle, as it was such a totally different experience from anything anyone had seen before.

I want to mention the Step Short project in my constituency, of which I am chairman. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who has been to Folkestone to visit the project and see what we are planning: to tell a local story based on rediscovering the role the town played during the war. Folkestone was the major port of embarkation for troops to and from the trenches of the western front. It is estimated that 10 million servicemen came through the town during the war and our major project is to create a memorial arch over the route that they marched down to the ships in the harbour waiting to take them to France. The arch will commemorate not just those who lost their lives and for whom that journey was their last on home soil but everyone who served in the war—soldiers, nurses, people in the supply chains, everyone who was part of the national contribution to the first world war. I hope that people will come and experience what Folkestone has to offer and see the arch, which we will unveil on 4 August next year as our commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the war.

I also thank the National Army museum, which will bring an exhibition to Folkestone that will run from June next year for 10 months. It will help tell the story of the home front and the journey to war. Many stories will be rediscovered as part of the first world war centenary.

Another local story I will touch on is that of Walter Tull, whose story was rediscovered by the Dover war memorial project. He was the first black soldier to be commissioned in the British Army, as well as having been the first black professional footballer to play in an outfield position in the professional football leagues. Many such stories will be rediscovered.

Another Folkestone story that is important to us is the role that the town played in accommodating tens of thousands of refugees from Belgium in the first weeks of the war. We gave succour and comfort to people who had been dispossessed of their homes. That is an incredible story of the war, and we will discover more such stories as we go through.

In his poem “Aftermath”, Siegfried Sassoon said:

“Have you forgotten yet?

For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days.”

Next year we have a chance to demonstrate that we have not forgotten.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I believe the constituency boundary with Ribble Valley passes through the site, so I may have to stand corrected on which bit of the site they are made. The development upgrades and improved ISTAR to which my hon. Friend refers will provide the RAF, and the other six air forces that have already committed to the aircraft, with battle-winning performance, as was demonstrated in the Libya campaign. We are actively engaged with existing and potential partners and customers on the scope for collaborating on the development of further capability. We are also supporting industry in a number of export campaigns, and are hopeful that other allies and partner nations will join the family of users of this outstanding aircraft.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the value of the European Defence Agency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

The European Defence Agency has achieved some initial success in delivering improvements to the capabilities of European nations, but we believe that it could do a great deal better. That is why the Ministry of Defence concluded earlier this year that although we should maintain our subscription to the agency, our continuing membership is to be reviewed again in late 2013 in the light of progress made during the year.

[Damian Collins]

Does my hon. Friend agree that continued UK membership must be based on detailed cost-benefit analysis of both UK defence needs and those of our European NATO allies?

[Dr Murrison]

The EDA spends €30.5 million a year, which is a great deal of money in the current circumstances. I think the House will agree that it would be perverse if we were forced to make cutbacks in defence at home while voting through increases at a European level. I am therefore pleased to say that in November last year I again vetoed the increase in the EDA budget. The UK was the only country to exercise its vote in that way. For as long as the EDA fails to cut the mustard, we will continue to do just that.

Nuclear Deterrent

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray]

My hon. Friend is right.

Maintaining a continuous at-sea deterrent is essential. It sends the positive message that the UK is always prepared to respond instantly. There is the additional advantage of a moveable location, which assists security against any possible threats. The Government have excellent principles to abide by when considering nuclear arms. These include the use of nuclear weapons only in extreme circumstances of self-defence, a commitment to a minimum nuclear deterrent, and not to use any weapons contrary to international law. In other words, the highly powerful weapons would be used only as a last resort.

It is important to retain nuclear weapons. I was concerned at our going into coalition with partners who stated in their last election manifesto that they would be saying no to like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Given the reports in The Independent on 19 July last year, I am still concerned that they might scale down our vital nuclear deterrent in increasingly uncertain times.

We need to remember that the UK’s nuclear deterrent contributes towards our collective security as part of NATO. If the UK did not have an at-sea deterrent, NATO’s collective security would be weakened, leaving the UK dependent on the US and France.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that major wars tend to start when dictators believe that democracies are too weak to stand up to them? For democracies such as Britain to give up their nuclear deterrent would send out entirely the wrong message about how we seek to protect others and ourselves.

[Sheryll Murray]

That is exactly true.

The UK has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. We were awarded that position because our nation was one of the most powerful in the world following world war two. The UK’s membership of that exclusive club could be called into question without the continuation of our nuclear deterrent.

A British at-sea nuclear deterrent has served us well for 60 years; it can and should serve us well into the future. I hope that refitting work on any future submarines will continue to provide much-needed employment opportunities for my constituents in Saltash, Torpoint and throughout the rest of South East Cornwall.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

What I say to the hon. Gentleman is that we face the situation that we face. We came into office with a massive deficit, which we inherited from the previous Government, and as I shall argue, we have taken the tough decisions that, frankly, the previous Government shirked over the last few years, thereby doing the armed forces and the country no favours.

By 2010, Britain’s armed forces had endured a decade of high-tempo operations without a formal defence review and were faced with a period of acute fiscal pressure. The case for reform to ensure that the armed forces were restructured and re-equipped to protect our national security against the threats that we would face, within a budget that the nation could sustain, was unanswerable. Tough decisions were necessary to deal with problems on the scale of the inherited defence deficit, and this Government took them. I am clear, as the Prime Minister and my predecessor have been, that whatever the pain, our first duty is to put our armed forces on a sustainable basis by restructuring them for the future and putting the budgets that sustain them on a stable footing. As the SDSR acknowledged, the process of transitioning to Future Force 2020 will require us to take some calculated and carefully managed risks against certain capabilities, most prominent among which are wide-area maritime surveillance, to which the hon. Member for Bridgend referred, and carrier strike.

I regret in particular the cuts in personnel that are required to deliver that rebalancing and make the armed forces sustainable. However, in case any confusion has been created over the last few days, let me clear up one point. The headcount of military personnel will have been reduced by around 18% by 2020 compared with the 2010 baseline. That is in contrast to a 38% reduction in civilian headcount. Regrettably, some of that reduction will have to be achieved by redundancy. Where that is necessary, every opportunity is being given, and will continue to be given, for military personnel at risk of redundancy to retrain for alternative roles of which there are shortages in the armed forces.

I heard the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire earlier. Following the publication of the Select Committee’s report, I have asked for a specific briefing on the point that he raised. I would be happy to share that with him after the debate—[Interruption.] I will share it with the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) as well, if he wishes. It includes a list of the shortage trades for which suitably qualified individuals who are facing redundancy are invited to apply.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

The large number of redundancies in the Gurkhas has inevitably caused concern among them and in my constituency. Will the Secretary of State give me a commitment that the Gurkhas will remain a unique and important part of the British armed forces?

[Mr Hammond]

The Gurkhas remain a very important part of the British armed forces. I think that my hon. Friend understands exactly the problem that we face in regard to Gurkha numbers. Their terms of service were changed as a result of decisions made by the courts and the campaigning pressure that was placed on the previous Government. That means that most Gurkhas have elected to extend their service to 22 years. Consequently, the numbers of Gurkhas in service are projected to be above the levels needed to sustain the two brigades that we wish to sustain. That has given rise to a larger number of Gurkha redundancies than we would have expected to see. That is regrettable but, I am afraid, inevitable.

We are making tough decisions to tackle the massive deficit left by the previous Government and the unfunded defence programme. If those decisions had been easy or popular, you can bet your life that the Labour Government would have taken them years ago. They did not do so, however, and it now falls to the coalition to do the right thing in the long-term national interest. Translating the strategic prescriptions of the SDSR into decisive actions was always going to be a process rather than an event. Turning the corner on a decade of mismanagement will take time and determination.

To shine a bit of light into the end of the tunnel, the Government announced in July 2011 that the MOD could plan on the budget allocated to defence equipment and equipment support increasing by 1% a year in real terms between 2015 and 2020. That amounts to more than £3 billion of new money over the period. Importantly, that commitment was renewed by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury after the autumn statement. That will enable investment in a number of programmes, including the procurement of new Chinook helicopters, the refurbishment of the Army’s Warrior fleet, the procurement of the Rivet Joint, or Airseeker, intelligence and surveillance aircraft, and the development of the global combat ship.

The MOD is currently undertaking its annual budget setting process, which is known as the planning round. I am personally engaged in that process, and I am increasingly confident that we are close to achieving a sustainable and balanced defence budget for the first time in a decade or more. That would be an immense achievement, and would allow us to plan with confidence and to spend well over £150 billion on new equipment and equipment support over the next decade, as well as delivering the force restructuring and rebasing that we have announced. A turnaround on that scale requires a major cultural shift. Defence must change the way in which it does things and the way in which it addresses problems. It must challenge the received wisdom around the doctrines used to deliver defence tasks and around the management of defence itself.

Last month, the Government published the first annual report on the SDSR, which set out in full the progress that is being made. Let me address a couple of salient areas of what the MOD calls “transforming defence”—that is, the journey from the mess that we inherited towards achieving a sustainable, capable, coherent and adaptable force, built on balanced budgets and disciplined processes, by 2020. As I have said, I am clear that the Ministry of Defence must balance its budget. I am equally clear that it does not exist to balance its budget; it exists to deliver effective defence within a sustainable budget envelope.

UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

We have had a very interesting debate. Members of all parties have spoken with a great deal of conviction and insight based on their own experiences, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart).

I cannot speak from personal experience of having visited Afghanistan or served with our troops, but many of my constituents are serving there. Before I make some general remarks about the conflict itself, let me pay tribute to the Royal Gurkha Rifles, who are based at Shorncliffe barracks in my constituency and are currently on a tour of duty in Afghanistan from which they are due to return in November. They have made a number of tours, and the current one may not be their last. Like most regiments, they have sustained casualties, not least in the attack within the British base at Nahri Sarraj in July which led to the deaths of three servicemen and injuries to four further Gurkhas.

Shortly after that attack I visited Cheriton primary school in my constituency, where a number of Gurkha families send their children. Many of their fathers were on duty in Afghanistan at the time of my visit. In the school library is a memorial wall explaining the conflict, on which the children are invited to post their own comments. There is even a school mascot, and the children regularly receive photographs of it from Gurkhas serving in Helmand.

Anyone who has direct access to the families of servicemen, or even lives alongside them, will be aware of the strain that is placed on them, especially when they are in an active zone and casualties are being sustained there. I make that comment for a simple reason: after nine years of conflict we have a series of obligations in addition to the strategic imperative behind the conflict in Afghanistan. We have an obligation to those who have served, and particularly to those who have lost family members in Afghanistan.

I also believe that, after nine years, we have obligations to the Afghan people. What those obligations are has been discussed in the debate. We obviously have an obligation to ourselves and to protect our security, but I believe that after nine years we also have an obligation to those who have benefited from the slightly more liberal regime they live under now than the earlier Taliban regime, in particular women who are in education and work and men who have enlisted in the Afghan police or army. What recriminations and reprisals might they experience as, effectively, “collaborators” with the new regime should that country collapse back into chaos? I am not saying that we can stay in Afghanistan indefinitely—we cannot, of course—but I believe that we have obligations to the people of Afghanistan and that that should be part of our thinking too.

Sun Tzu said that wars are lost in the temples of the rulers before they are ever fought. That is an interesting observation in respect of the war in Afghanistan and our debate today. There has been criticism that the west has almost accepted defeat—that we are in the process of merely managing retreat to some end point when we are ultimately defeated and we leave. The Taliban take comfort from that criticism. I do not believe that that criticism is true at all, but I believe others seek to draw that conclusion from the debates and exchanges we have.

There is a political war to be won, just as there is a military campaign to be executed. The heart of that political war must be that we have the resolution and desire to give our armed forces the support they need to complete the strategy we have set out for them and that we are determined to see that through—that even though there are very difficult periods in the conflict we are not weakened in our desire to pursue that strategy.

In respect of the operations in Afghanistan, there is a temptation to believe that, because we have been there for nine years, we are continuing to pursue the same strategy in the same way, and that not much has changed and we are now hoping that something different will come along simply because we have been there for a long time, but in fact the nature of the conflict has changed dramatically. The troop surge has changed it too, and I urge Members to show some patience so that we give General Petraeus and leaders in Afghanistan the chance to see the current stage of the strategy through.

The situation has changed since 2008, when there were, perhaps, 30,000 American servicemen in Afghanistan and a much smaller number of international troops. We now have more than 130,000 or 140,000 men there, and an ever-growing Afghan police and armed forces presence as well. We must take that into consideration.

There is often too little talk in the British media—and perhaps in some of our exchanges in Parliament too—of what the counter-insurgency operations are doing and the successes they are achieving. There was an article in The Times a couple of weeks ago, written by an officer who had served in Sangin, looking at what the British have achieved there. That town was a Taliban hot spot, but the officer writes that now 150 small businesses are thriving, and there is a regular weekly market and a sense of normality and life returning. We should be proud of the work our troops have done in Sangin to make that possible. The article also talked about the importance of our men undertaking foot patrols so that they are on a level with the Afghan people and are seen to take risks with them, instead of hiding behind barracks.

On the question raised earlier in the debate about a potential change in strategy, I do not claim to be a military expert but I do have a theory. If we retreated to barracks or safe points in camps, would that give us much of an ability to engage with the Afghan people and to be an effective counter-insurgent or peaceful operative in the country?

I am interested to read and hear news about what successes there have been since the launch of Operation Moshtarak, particularly in respect of the Americans going into Marjah. We are not operating alone; we are part of an international force and strategy. The success of that strategy is part of our success too, therefore. There have been reports in the American media that the US Marines can now go into Marjah, a town that was once a centre of Taliban control and so dangerous that ISAF troops were told not even to fly over it. They may not have total control of that town or the surrounding area, but they are exerting considerable influence. Again, we are looking here at the time scale. It is believed that it might take up to 18 months or so for Marjah to be secured. There is some evidence to suggest that the difficult, complex and uncertain work of counter-insurgency is, with the greater resources being put behind that strategy, starting to bear some fruit. We must exercise a degree of patience in allowing that to happen.

We cannot cut and run from Afghanistan. I do not believe that any Member of any party has truly advocated that today. We have obligations to the Afghan people and to the situation in Afghanistan to see through our strategic objectives—not to create Hampshire in Helmand, as some people have written and said, as we will never achieve that, but to create a country where the Afghans can, in time, take over security operations and the governance of their own country. There may well be a need for considerable reform in how the Afghan Government work, and for them to build up their own trust with their own people. We can play a role in that: we cannot do all of that for Afghanistan, but we have set our course and I believe that we should stick by our strategy, and that now is not the time to be considering a withdrawal.

First World War Commemoration

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me this Adjournment debate, whose theme is the forthcoming centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, which will fall in August 2014. It may feel as if that centenary is a little way off, but this debate is timely because today the Imperial War museum has hosted a national conference bringing together representatives of voluntary and community groups from across the country to discuss the work they can do in preparing for that centenary.

In 1964, on the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the first world war, similar co-ordination of activity and events around the country took place. In my constituency, there was an exhibition of war paintings at the Metropole art gallery, which was hosted in conjunction with the Imperial War museum. Co-ordination also took place for the Last Night of the Proms, with music by Vaughan Williams and Britten acting as a musical commemoration of the war. Many organisations would seek a similar level of co-ordination for this forthcoming centenary between groups involved in heritage and the arts, community groups across the country and the Government.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate and on mentioning the work that the Imperial War museum does. Will he also pay tribute to the work that it does to build up a national inventory of war memorials? Does he share the concern about the fact that many a war memorial is, sadly, the victim of either neglect or vandalism? Will he join me in the campaign by the War Memorials Trust to have all war memorials registered by the time of the commemoration?

[Damian Collins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I am happy to support that very worthwhile project. The television series produced by Ian Hislop, “Not Forgotten”, was a good demonstration of the power of memorials, some of which had fallen into abeyance and loss. In two local projects in the villages of Lyminge and Sandgate, in my constituency, local people have decoded the war memorials, using new online materials to look up the stories of the servicemen who served in their own communities, for example, Walter Tull. He is named on the Folkestone war memorial and was the first person who was not a European white male to be commissioned into the British Army—he was commissioned in the field as a second lieutenant during the first world war. He also had the distinction of being the first black man to play in an outfield position in the English football leagues, and his story was really uncovered by a project run by the Dover War Memorial Project. It would be a wonderful way to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the war if similar projects could be launched across the country, perhaps supported by the Imperial War museum and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to give people toolkits to understand where their memorials are and the stories of the men that lie beyond them.

We are all familiar with the fact that although the men who served in that war have passed—indeed, many of their children are probably no longer with us—their stories remain. Part of the Chamber in which we sit today is, in some ways, a memorial to the 20 Members of this House who lost their lives on active service during that war and the many others who saw active service. One of my predecessors as the Member of Parliament for the Folkestone and Hythe area, Sir Philip Sassoon, was on active service as an officer of the East Kent Regiment, which was known as “the Buffs” during the war, and he also led a lot of the local recruitment. Many other distinguished Members of this House served in that war too. As Members of Parliament, we too can think of a fitting commemoration for that centenary.

Today’s conference at the Imperial War museum is also being attended by Ann Berry, a former mayor of Folkestone, who has worked closely with me on our own project in Folkestone, Step Short. It seeks to mark the recognition of Folkestone’s role during the war. I wish to talk a little about that, because it is important to think of the centenary in terms not only of the sacrifices made by allied servicemen in the trenches on the western front and around the world, but of sites of significance in this country. Such sites were well understood in the years after the first world war, but, of course, memory has been lost.

My friend, Professor Nick Bosanquet, who has kindly joined us in the Public Gallery this evening, has, aside from his duties at Imperial college and with the Reform think-tank, also done work on the significance of UK sites—particularly Folkestone, which was the major port of embarkation and disembarkation for about 9 million men during the war, as well as sites in Gretna and Liverpool and of major munitions production as well as other sites around the country. It is important that those stories are not forgotten.

The anniversary of 1914 is in many ways the start of an important series of anniversaries: the outbreak of the first world war in 1914; for many in the Commonwealth and the UK, Gallipoli in 1915; the battle of the Somme in 1916; Passchendaele in 1917; and, of course, the Armistice in 1918. That theme was picked up by the Irish Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, in a recent speech he made to the institute for British-Irish studies. He said that in 2016 in particular—a significant date for Ireland—

“the centenary of the Somme will be commemorated here in Dublin, as in Belfast, to honour the heroism of those who fought and died there, Protestant and Catholic, side by side.”

The centenary gives us a chance to remember and reflect. The significance of the first world war is great, not only because of the enormous loss of life on all sides but because that war shaped, in many ways, the politics of the 20th century and so much of the world in which we live today.

The centenary is a good way of uncovering the human story. I was very moved last week to attend a service at Shorncliffe military cemetery in my constituency on 1 July, which is Canada day. The Canadians had many thousands of men stationed in Folkestone during the war, 296 of whom are buried in the cemetery. After the war, the people of the town promised Canada that they would look after and maintain those graves. Every year, 296 schoolchildren from the constituency sit by individual graves with individual presentations of flowers that they make to the graves as part of a service of memorial. That links the town not only to the story of the first world war but to the lives of individual servicemen, too. That is a fitting act of memorial.

On the harbour arm of Folkestone harbour, there was a canteen maintained by Florence and Margaret Jeffrey. They ran the harbour canteen, dispensing free cups of tea and refreshments to men before the troops boarded. In the case of most people who have an ancestor who served in the first world war, that person would probably have passed through Folkestone in one way or another during that time. There is a record of 40,000 names collected in the visitors’ books from those of general servicemen to those of people such as Field Marshall Haig, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill who passed through the town. With the support of Kent county council, we have started a project to create a digital record of those names and to scan each of the pages of those books. We are looking to raise funds to have that as a resource that can be accessed online by people around the world who want to search for stories of their ancestors. It will record them as being in Folkestone on a particular time, place and day during that war.

Most of the men who were in Folkestone during the war would have assembled on the Leas, outside the Grand, which was a great society hotel in the period before the war. It was also the place where Wilfred Owen, the war poet, spent his last night in England. They would have been assembled and marched along the Leas, down a road that during the war was known as the Slope road, to the harbour before they embarked for the trenches of Belgium and France. For many of them, that would have been their last journey in England before they went to the trenches, not to return.

That is the significance of the UK sites. Hundreds and thousands of people every year make that pilgrimage themselves to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors in the battlefields. As a schoolboy doing my GCSE studies, I made that same journey, as many people studying history as part of the national curriculum and their GCSE courses will do today. To continue shamelessly to plug my constituency’s heritage links, people can start those journeys and see part of them in this country, too, without making the trip to France. They can walk, as many men did, down the Leas in Folkestone and down the road that, after the war, was renamed the Road of Remembrance as a national memorial to the sacrifices made by those men—a walk down which many people could go, retracing their steps. There are elements of our heritage, particularly as regards the first world war, that have been lost and forgotten and anything that we can do to use the centenary to reconnect people with those stories and the sacrifices that so many millions of people made during that war would be excellent.

Will the Minister consider what support the Government could give? It need not necessarily be financial support, but could be support in co-ordinating a national day of remembrance to mark the centenary, perhaps with a national programme of events. They could work with the major galleries and museums and the regimental museums, particularly at sites with a strong interest, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) has said, work in support of the memorials themselves. That would be a particularly fitting memorial.

I should also like to know whether the Government will consider marking a national day of remembrance, potentially in the form of a bank holiday or a part-bank holiday on the day of the centenary of the outbreak of the war. Might they consider having a permanent national bank holiday of remembrance, perhaps on Armistice day or a day of the week near to it, as other countries do? Australia and New Zealand have Anzac day as a national memorial day, and there are national memorial days in other countries, such as the United States. Perhaps it is time for us to consider making such a move, and the centenary of the first world war would be a fitting time to introduce such a national holiday or day of remembrance. If it could not be an additional holiday, perhaps there could be discussions about it replacing another bank holiday, as it might be a more fitting to have a bank holiday on that day.

So, although Adjournment debates involve closing the proceedings of the House, my intention was to start a debate among our colleagues and people around the country who have a great interest in the historical and community significance of the first world war about how we in the country and in the House should lead the country in marking that centenary.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this matter. He is absolutely right that there is huge interest in it, despite the long lapse of time. One reason for that is the availability of so much more information, including the online record of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of every serviceman who lost his life in that disastrous war. Given that we spend so much time commemorating the events and triumphs of the second world war, is it not right that we should remember that twice as many were killed in the first world war as in the second, and in a smaller geographical area? So many of the political mistakes of the first world war paved the way for the second world war. Surely, therefore, we have to give it serious attention when the anniversary comes.

[Damian Collins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his meaningful contribution to the debate. He is absolutely right about the enormous significance of the war and that the far greater loss of life in that war is sometimes forgotten.

In some ways, the burden of memorial falls on new generations, which is why this is a particularly important challenge for the House. There are still alive today many service veterans from the second world war and many people who have vivid memories of that war, as was seen at the 70th anniversary of Dunkirk, which was marked last month. For the first world war, those memories are not there, so there is a greater challenge for this generation and new generations to continue celebrations when those events are so much further away. I want to mark that challenge with a nod to the huge canon of literature about the first world war. Let me adapt slightly Kipling’s words in his lament for his son:

“Then hold your head up all the more,

This tide,

And every tide;

Because they were the sons Britain bore,

And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!”