Armed Forces Covenant

Debate between Gerald Howarth and James Gray

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) with whom, alongside the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan), I shared not exactly a platform but the plinth on the George V statue on the other side of the road from here last Saturday when 1,000 troops were there.

I endorse everything the right hon. Gentleman said. It is absolutely immoral that the men who fought in that filthy war, wearing the Queen’s uniform and doing their best for their country, facing an enemy who wore civilian clothes and lurked in the shadows among the civilian population, are now being dragged from their beds at 6 o’clock in the morning in dawn raids and dragged off to Northern Ireland. It is unacceptable. I am afraid I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister on the Government Front Bench that this is not a matter simply for the Police Service of Northern Ireland or for the prosecuting authorities. It is, as I told the Prime Minister, a matter for Ministers. This is a matter of public policy and it must be addressed. I strongly endorse the case made by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley for a statute of limitations. I know many of my hon. Friends would have been on that plinth with me had that been possible.

[Mr Gray]

On a similar and related point, does my hon. Friend agree that firmly within the Government’s remit is the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, which is, outrageously, criticising 4,500 of our soldiers? It looks like 60, or maybe a little fewer than that, will be prosecuted. Does my hon. Friend not agree that this is an absolute disgrace?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I entirely agree. I felt at the time that that man Phil Shiner was a disgrace. He was a dreadful man engaged in the cowardly and unacceptable activity of trying to find people to stand up and accuse their fellow countrymen who had gone to relieve the people of Iraq from their suffering. He tried to do down those people and I am very pleased to hear today that he has been struck off. Frankly, I do not think that that is enough; but then I always was a supporter of capital punishment.

Record Copies of Acts

Debate between Gerald Howarth and James Gray

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Were I a nimble enough speaker, I would leap from the place where I am in my speech to the point to which she refers. However, I will talk in a moment about the things we have today because they were made of vellum but which we would not have if they had been made of paper.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the debate in 1999, when Mr Brian White raised the issue, as a Milton Keynes Member, because the factory would have had to close. I made the point in that debate that down the other end of the building, there was an Act of Parliament dated 1497 that was on view to the public. It was not a facsimile or a replica; it was an Act of Parliament—it bore the sovereign’s signature and it was legible. We know that vellum lasts 500 years, but we do not know that any other material will last 500 years.

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely strong point.

The third argument that is sometimes advanced by those who are opposed to vellum is that this is some sort of animal rights or animal welfare matter because of the use of calfskins in making vellum. The answer to that point is that the calfskins are picked up from the abattoir. The calves are killed for the purpose of being eaten, so there is absolutely no animal welfare consideration of any kind at all. Indeed, we could argue that reusing the calfskins is a much more environmentally friendly approach.

In contrast to those three—rather weak, in my view—arguments in favour of abolishing vellum, there are three vastly stronger reasons for keeping it. First, vellum has for centuries been used for documents of significance and importance. University graduation certificates have always been on vellum, as have certificates of long service and military commissions. Every law in every Commonwealth Parliament throughout the world is on vellum. In America, West Point graduates get vellums. Knighthoods are on vellum, as are peerages. Any decent, important document that we have uses vellum. When we give a certificate to our Lord Mayor for his long service, it is always on vellum. Why should we be uniquely downgrading the laws of the land and saying that they are not important enough to be on vellum, despite the fact that our university graduation certificates are?

Secondly, vellum is hugely more durable than paper—there is no question about that at all. It cannot be crushed and it cannot be torn up. Of course, we are not allowed to use visual aids in this Chamber, Mr Speaker—I would not dream of doing such a thing—but I can show that it is true that vellum cannot be crushed or squashed, because it comes out just as it was before its crushing. It cannot be torn or burned, and it is not affected by water. It is durable in a very real sense.

As some of my hon. Friends have mentioned, we have good examples of how vellum has survived without any maintenance at all. It lasts for up to 5,000 years; by comparison, the maximum that can be achieved for the highest quality archival paper is 200 or 300 years.

Gurkha Pensions

Debate between Gerald Howarth and James Gray

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the magnificent work she has done in seeking to find a just solution to this problem. She mentions that the Gurkha pension scheme was available on the completion of 15 years of service. Am I right in thinking that at the same time the British Army pension scheme was available at 20 years of service, thereby giving the Gurkha soldier a significant time advantage over the rest of the British Army?

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

Twenty-two.

UK Military Basing Review

Debate between Gerald Howarth and James Gray

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that I am about to make, which is that all I have said adds up to an extremely complex piece of work. He is right. Where the children are to be educated and which base may be best suited to a land army operation are not decisions that can be made on the back of a fag packet. They clearly require considerable thought. I will come on to that again in a moment.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Minister does not need reminding by me that RAF Lyneham and the neighbouring towns of Wootton Bassett and Lyneham provide all the schools, infrastructure and transport that could possibly be needed for returning troops from Germany, and it will be available to them later this year.

[Mr Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that on the record. It looks as though I could organise a competitive tender here, but I am not sure whether his parliamentary allowance could be used to bid to see who would offer the best value to the Ministry of Defence. Having visited Lyneham, I understand the facilities it offers. I reiterate my tribute to the people of Wootton Bassett in his constituency. I have been privileged to see the repatriations with him, and see how the town has been a credit to the whole kingdom for its dignity and the tributes it has paid to the fallen from Afghanistan. As we work our way through these issues, I assure hon. Members that we are well aware of the human dimension—the effect on our own people as they wait to hear how these decisions will affect them and their families.