Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Ministry of Defence

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts
Monday 15th November 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Leo Docherty Portrait Leo Docherty
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I absolutely join my hon. Friend in thanking Jackie McGinnis and the Keighley branch of the Royal British Legion. They have done terrifically good work. It is indeed an all-year-round challenge, and that is why we are pleased to have invested £25 million this year in third sector charities that support our veterans and armed forces. I am very grateful for the work that my hon. Friend continues to do in his constituency.

Lord Cryer Portrait John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
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I speak as a great admirer of the poppy appeal. However, when the Minister next meets the national leadership of the Royal British Legion, will he point out that effectively closing down a branch and expelling its officers, as they have done in Leyton, is not the best way to promote the appeal, and nor is sealing and shutting the building so that its members have no access, and removing the base for the appeal in years to come?