War Graves Week

Debate between Jonathan Edwards and Philip Dunne

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

It is a great honour to take part in this debate. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), and I welcome his support for the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the remarks that he made. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—the chairman of the commission—and congratulate him on wearing the newly designed corporate tie. I particularly thank him, the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip for providing Government time for this debate on such an important topic.

I am also deeply honoured to be one of the two serving parliamentary commissioners of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and I look forward to the comments from my other commissioner, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), shortly. Having parliamentary representation on the commission marks a tradition going back to the origins of the commission, more than 100 years ago.

Our debate comes in the midst of War Graves Week but is also a timely reflection of the events in June to commemorate the liberation of Europe with the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings. Many of our constituents and many in this House will have had forebears, including parents, who served during world war two. Last autumn, I visited Salerno in Italy, where Commonwealth and American forces landed to form a beachhead on the European mainland in late 1943. More than 1,800 servicemen are commemorated there. It was a particularly poignant trip for me, since my grandfather won his military cross there with the Commandos, and my father-in-law wrote an account of the landing for the liberation of Italy. Reverting to the Normandy landings, my wife’s cousin led the Special Service Brigade, which took the Pegasus Bridge, accompanied by his brigade piper. More locally, one of my predecessors as MP for Ludlow, Lieutenant-Colonel Uvedale Corbett, won the distinguished service order for his actions during the Normandy landings and breakout.

All of us will have connections to those who served during the second world war, so the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission should be important to us all. The commission cares for some 23,000 war memorials and cemeteries across 153 countries and territories around the globe, helping us all to honour and commemorate the 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women who lost their life through war. Few experiences are more moving or evocative than visiting any of our battlefield cemeteries and seeing the ranks of the iconic headstones that mark the graves of the fallen, so magnificently maintained by the dedicated commission staff. In reality, the work of the commission spans much more than even that.

Along with the wide range of the commission’s historic preservation of world-class monuments and millions of headstones, it also has world-class expertise in horticulture and the research and record management that goes into sustaining our database of millions of casualties. Another of its most moving and impressive roles is in the continuing recovery, forensic identification and respectful reburial of the remains of the fallen, where possible with military honours. That still goes on, month in, month out. During War Graves Week, we can all take time—I urge colleagues across the House to do so—to visit sites in each of our constituencies.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Yesterday I visited Llandingat cemetery at the church in Llandovery, where there are several Commonwealth graves. I worked with Ryan Jones, who is a volunteer with the commission. Will the right hon. Gentleman pay tribute to the volunteers for their work in places such as Carmarthenshire looking after these graves?

[Philip Dunne]

I am delighted to, and the hon. Gentleman pre-empts one of the comments I will make. He is absolutely right, and the volunteering element to preserving the quality of the headstones is a relatively recent phenomenon. I am sure we will touch on that in a few moments. There is plenty of scope to add more volunteers. Indeed, many Members might want to consider volunteering to maintain gravestones in their own constituencies.

In south Shropshire, more than 200 casualties from world war one and world war two are buried at 74 locations across the Ludlow constituency, with more than 30 commemorated at Bridgnorth cemetery, the largest site in the constituency. Like the hon. Member, I paid my respects at one of those sites last Saturday, in the deconsecrated churchyard of St Leonards in Ludlow, where volunteers help keep the war graves in as reasonable order as possible in a churchyard that is no longer active. War Graves Week, inaugurated only in 2021, stands as a good opportunity to highlight all the work that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission does around the world, none of which would be possible without both our generous member nation funders and, of course, our amazing staff and volunteers.

With my wider interest in the environment, I would like to touch briefly on the commission’s work from a sustainability and horticultural perspective. There can be few organisations in the world with a responsibility for sustaining the environment with such a diverse global footprint, managing sites in all climates, at various elevations, and with one of the widest ranges of flora and fauna. Horticulturalists working for the commission care for many native plant species in our sites across the world. While that means that the commission is a curator with exceptional knowledge about those plants, we are also very much challenged by global climate change. The commission has committed to achieve net zero by 2050 and is utilising new approaches to horticulture and memorial maintenance to reflect the changing climate while reducing the use of pesticides and herbicides as well as fossil fuels.

I place on record my thanks as a member of the commission’s audit committee to my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary. As he mentioned in his opening speech, as chairman of the Commission he showed real leadership earlier this year in securing a three-year funding settlement from donor nations, led by the Ministry of Defence. We are extremely grateful to him for that, not least because that provides certainty of funding to continue the commission’s fine work through the inevitable uncertainty of a general election and a potential spending review.

Of course, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s work is not immune from the impact of war today. Sadly, many of the places in which the commission looks after war memorials and cemeteries suffer from the instability and repercussions of conflict. Our sites in Gaza have been no exception. I join the Defence Secretary in paying tribute to the work of many people both here in the UK and in our high commissions in the region in helping to ensure the safe evacuation of our staff and their families. Unfortunately, our restoration work on site will have to wait while access remains impossible due to the war.

We face similar challenges in securing safe access to our cemeteries in some other places, currently including Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Sudan, but our commitment to those sites is undiminished. I know that we will return to carry out our important work as soon as conditions allow.

In three weeks, we will be marking the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings. This is an important opportunity to remember the contribution of UK and Commonwealth soldiers in the liberation of Europe from the Nazis and to encourage the next generation to take up responsibility for remembrance. Since this may well be the last significant milestone commemoration of the D-day landings attended by veterans of the campaign, it is a particularly poignant commemoration. It also highlights just how important it is that younger generations take up the mantle of remembrance. The commission has therefore placed a great emphasis on involving schoolchildren in the major programme of events in both the UK and France on 5 and 6 June involving veterans, serving personnel and children. Normandy, where the commission maintains 116 cemeteries and memorials that mark the graves of 25,000 fallen service personnel, will of course be the centre point of the commemorations.

The commission, recognising the need to maintain our relevance to future generations, has spent much of the last year looking further ahead at developing its strategy towards 2039, as both opening speeches referred to. That sets a clear path to the 100th anniversary of world war two, increasing our collaboration with parallel organisations in other countries both to foster reconciliation between former adversaries and to inform younger generations about the human cost of war. That is all the more poignant and relevant given that the first state-on-state war at scale since 1945 is going on in Europe right now.

As we move beyond lifetime memory of the world wars, the environment in which the commission does its work is changing. Younger generations are not as directly or personally connected as older generations to world war one and world war two. Clearly, that represents a challenge, but it is also the true test of our commitment to honour the fallen—one that I hope future generations will meet, just as previous generations have.

I thank all Members here today for their support for War Graves Week and for the important work that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission undertakes around the world. The serried ranks of gravestones, so well maintained by the commission, leave a clear impression on all who see them of the sacrifice of the fallen around the world. They serve as a reminder to us all of the immense human cost of war, and that the legacy of those who gave their lives depends on facing down the resurgent threats to global stability that we face today.