Awards for Valour (Protection) Bill

Debate between Gareth Johnson and Craig Whittaker

Friday 25th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution. Since I introduced the Bill, I have been touched by the number of ex-servicemen and current servicemen who have contacted me to express exactly that sentiment, and who feel that they are being undermined and that the value of medals is being chipped away and eroded by those who are undeserving and yet claim otherwise.

People must have confidence, when they see the magnificent sight of veterans proudly wearing their medals at Remembrance Day parade services and elsewhere, that those medals were legitimately awarded to those who sport them. I will give the House one categorical assurance about the Bill. Nothing in it will cut across the wonderful custom of families, out of respect and honour to the recipients, wearing medals that their loved ones earned.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there must be a clear definition of “family member” to ensure that there is no room for manoeuvre or any loopholes in the system for people to abuse?

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. There are two ways of trying to preserve the right—I would call it that—of family members to sport medals. One is to be very definitive and to list everybody who qualifies as a family member, as the Children Act 1989 attempts to do, and the other is to keep it open and allow the courts some discretion.

The difficulty with trying to define exactly who is a family member is that we will always miss people out. Is the boyfriend of a niece a family member? It probably depends on the circumstances. The list goes on. I have deliberately taken the view, therefore, that there should be a wide definition of “family member” in order to allow the courts to decide whether it applies. No doubt, that point will be debated in Committee. It is something I am open-minded about. I do not want to be over-prescriptive. I just want to preserve this great custom and ensure that loved ones and family members can still sport, often on the right breast, the medals earned by others in their family of whom they are rightly proud.