Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Historical Inequalities Report

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Indeed, one of the points made in the recommendations concerned looking at the evidence and having flexibility in the evidence criteria used. All new proposed commemorations must meet certain specific criteria, but the commission has for some time been working on new policies concerning the evidence required to prove status, allowing for flexibility where it is known that documentation is wanting, for example. It is very important to bear this in mind because we want to use every opportunity and every evidence that we can find to commemorate those who have fallen.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I received the report we are discussing with great sadness and echo some of the disappointment—to say the very least—at its findings, but I want to move in a slightly different direction. I have visited a war cemetery in Kariokor in the outskirts of Nairobi, and found that all the graves of those who had fought in the Second World War were appropriately commemorated. Similarly, the 40,000 carriers and porters who were essential to the supplying of the troops are commemorated adequately in a scattering of cemeteries, from Mombasa up to the ridge in the highlands of Kenya.

I have also visited cemeteries in Karen and Asmara in Eritrea. It was most touching to see that the fallen in February and March 1941 saw Indians, Sikhs, Muslims, British Christians and whoever buried in the same yard and, as it says in the record, “According to the rites and ceremonies of their particular religion”. Could it be that this was general practice, the improvement that had been made by the time of the Second World War? Could the Minister give us some indication of when that picture will be fleshed out, so that we have a more adequate understanding of the process?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point in focusing particularly on the Second World War. Of course the report focuses only on the First World War. I reassure him that, as the rollout of these recommendations continues—and we are making sure that we do roll them out—we will be looking at the Second World War later as part of an expanded plan, but that is some way down the line. The noble Lord is right: in the First World War, those who perhaps were not honoured were indeed combatants or perhaps carriers, those who carried the supplies that were needed to support the troops engaged in fighting. It is those individuals in the First World War who we want to focus on.