Military Covenant

Naomi Long Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House acknowledges the service and sacrifice of the United Kingdom’s armed forces and veterans and supports the full implementation of the military covenant in each region of the United Kingdom.

It is an honour to lead off in this debate on behalf of my colleagues on this side of the House. At the outset, I want to pay tribute to all our service personnel from across the United Kingdom, and indeed from other countries, who serve in our armed forces. I also pay tribute to the veterans who have served this country with great distinction. In Northern Ireland, we hold our armed forces in very high esteem, and we have seen in recent years—during the time of the troubles—how the armed forces were on the front line, standing in the gap between the general public and those whose objective was to create mayhem and undermine the democratic process.

We have also seen our armed forces in action in recent years in Iraq and Afghanistan. We understand the sacrifice that they make, and the sacrifices made by their families—by those left behind at home, the husbands, wives and children of members of our armed forces. That is important in the context of this debate, because the military covenant should not just be about the personnel who serve or have served: it includes their families.

Like all right hon. and hon. Members, I stood beside the war memorial in Lisburn in my constituency on 11 November as we honoured the dead of two world wars and of the conflicts that have occurred since the second world war. I watched as my constituent Ian Walker, his wife Rhoda and their sons, Kyle and Ross, laid a wreath in memory of Corporal Stephen Walker, who served with 40 Commando in Afghanistan and was killed in action in May 2010. Although Stephen had been living in Scotland with his family, he was from Lisburn and our community saluted his memory. We stood with Ian and his family as they remembered their dear loved one, and this was repeated in many places across the United Kingdom.

It was good to see that representatives of the Irish Government were present at some of the war memorials in Northern Ireland to mark the fact that many people from the Irish Republic served in the British Army during the great war in particular, which of course occurred before the Republic of Ireland left the United Kingdom. Indeed, some have served since then, and even today we have people from the Republic of Ireland in the modern British Army and the other services.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my hope that the leadership that has been shown by the Irish Government on remembrance may defuse some of the tensions in Northern Ireland around the implementation of the military covenant, which is still—sadly—a politicised issue?

[Mr Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point and I will come on to that subject in the course of my remarks.