Royal British Legion Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Ministry of Defence
Tuesday 1st April 2025

(3 days ago)

Westminster Hall
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Lincoln Jopp Portrait Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
- Hansard - -

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing this debate.

In my constituency of Spelthorne, we have 2,500 veterans, and I want to talk about one of them—Alderman Robin Sider, who was awarded the British Empire Medal. He joined the Army as a private soldier and left 40 years later as a major. Like so many military veterans, he still felt imbued with the desire to do public service and he became Spelthorne’s longest serving councillor and twice its mayor. Given the reorganisation of local government, that record will never be beaten. It was the honour of my life last Friday to be a pallbearer at his funeral, and I remembered a particular story about Robin. Last November, I joined him for his stint collecting for the Royal British Legion outside Sainsbury’s in Shepperton High Street. Last year, there had been an innovation, which was the presence of a QR code. Robin was old school if nothing else and he rather liked the bragging rights that came with having collected up to £400 in his bucket. He did not know, if people used the QR reader, how much money they gave and therefore he could not brag about it. I had to rush away and run an errand for about 20 minutes. I came back and saw that the QR code had mysteriously had a poppy wreath placed over it, and as a result his bucket overflowed.

I pay tribute to the work of the Royal British Legion and all its volunteers. I am absolutely inundated with choices as to where to enjoy Remembrance Sunday. Equally, I am impressed by all the schools in Spelthorne and the way in which they keep the flame alive with our children.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the VE Day celebrations on 8 May, because I know that the Royal British Legion is still out there trying to find every last veteran who was around on VE Day to join it for those celebrations, and I urge anyone watching this debate so to do.