Armed Forces Bill

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

I might concur. I am proud to have served on the Select Committee that scrutinised the Bill and would like to thank my fellow Committee members, most of whom are here, for the serious and careful way in which they went about their work.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Where are the Labour ones?

[Mr Robathan]

I will resist the cry from behind me to be partisan on this occasion, although I would not usually.

The Committee undertook visits to Chilwell, Headley Court and Colchester, which helped Committee members in their consideration of the Bill. I thank everybody who put themselves out to arrange those visits for us, both here and in those places.

I thank the Select Committee Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), for his good humour and wise guidance and I thank the Committee staff for their work behind the scenes. There is a gap in my brief because my civil servants said that they could not possibly put in that I would like to thank them. I would like to thank the Ministry of Defence Bill team for the work that they have done on our behalf. Sometimes, they found things marginally fraught, but most of the time they just got on with doing their work in a good-natured way. One has to take tranquilisers if one works for me. [Interruption.] I thought I would get that in before anybody else. I still have not got the letter from the mayor of Bradford, by the way.

We have a good Bill, which has benefited from the scrutiny it has received. I believe that the Bill we send to the other place is in good order. Above all, it contains much that will benefit the many people who have served, do serve or will serve in our armed forces. I wish the Bill well in its remaining parliamentary stages, and I commend it to the House.