Armed Forces Day

James Cleverly Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that she put into making the case for Cleethorpes to host the first of the renewed national day events. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is looking forward to attending events in Cleethorpes this weekend and to hearing not only from those people who serve today, but the young people of the cadets in her community, who may be those who serve in the future, and the veterans who have served our nation. I am looking forward to events in Plymouth, but I know that the events in Cleethorpes will be the centre of our national attention this weekend, and rightly so.

[Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Does the Minister recognise that the UK’s armed forces are a visible manifestation of the philosophy and values that underpin the country? If society does not value the armed forces, would he concede that it might be because we have consistently failed to defend the principles and values that underpin our society? We should confront the accusations, for example, that this is an inherently racist country, which it absolutely is not, and that our history is not something to be proud of. Perhaps then wider society would appreciate the men and women who defend not just the physical country but our values, our history and our philosophy.

[Luke Pollard]

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s passion for telling our nation’s story. To tell our full story, we have to explain the good bits and, sometimes, the bad bits, but at all times we can look at the bravery, courage and service of our armed forces as a source of national pride. I also look at our armed forces today as the embodiment of some of our British values. I believe in equality: it is very important to me personally. When I think about our soldiers operating in Estonia at the moment, ready to deter a Russian move across the border, the colour of their skin, their religion, where they come from or their accent do not matter. All that matters is that in that unit, everyone has each other’s backs and is proud of our country, proud of their service and proud of the reasons they are there.

Armed forces week is an opportunity to remind people of the difficult jobs we ask our people to do and to thank them for it. The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the values that stand behind the uniform and why the flag they carry on their arms matters so much—it is not just a piece of cloth; it represents British values that we should all be proud of.

For that reason, it is important that we recognise that our service personnel need to feel more valued. The figure has plummeted over the past 12 years. We know that words will not address the problem. Only action will, and that is why it was so important to award our service personnel their biggest pay rise for more than two decades and to follow that up with another above-inflation pay rise this year. It is a source of great pride to me as the Minister for the Armed Forces that, for the first time, we can say that every single person in uniform is now paid the living wage. That should always have been the case, but sadly it was not; it is now.

Our armed forces deserve a lot more than just a decent salary. The cold, damp and mouldy homes that many have been living in are a betrayal of their service. After buying back 36,000 homes from the private sector that were sold off under a previous Conservative Government and saving taxpayers more than £600,000 a day in rent payments, we are delivering a generational renewal of military accommodation, with at least £7 billion of funding in this Parliament to tackle the poor state of forces housing.