Mr Mark Francois
MP for Rayleigh and Wickford · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Secondly, what actions is he as Defence Secretary, no doubt in consultation with the Chief of the General Staff, taking to push back against these pernicious in-year funding cuts imposed by the Treasury?”
“Taking him at his word, I must press him on some extremely worrying reports—first published in The Times on 3 September, and amplified in the Defence Eye journal on Tuesday—that British Army training is being seriously curtailed in order to provide in-year efficiency savings— “cuts”, in pub English— at the Treasury’s behest.”
“I am sure that I speak for the whole House in paying tribute to the Ukrainians for their fierce and determined resistance. They are fighting for the values of freedom and democracy, which this House has represented for centuries, so when we say, “Slava Ukraini!”, we mean it.”
“On behalf of the shadow Defence team, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new Defence Secretary—Labour’s third in three months—to his place and to thank him for advance sight of this important statement.”
“Tragically, a number of innocent civilians were murdered in Kyiv last night. On supporting Ukraine and brave President Zelensky, there has been absolute solidarity between ourselves and the Labour party.”
“On housing numbers, there is no Reform MP present this afternoon, but Reform-led Rochford district council has just published its regulation 19 local plan.”
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“I genuinely caution Labour Back Benchers not to be seduced by the blandishment of the Whips—I should know; I used to be one—into blithely following their Ministers, who I believe are acting akin to Lenin’s wise fools and helping to revive Sinn Féin’s vile campaign of lawfare against the British Army. When all is said and done, it is a straightforward choice this evening, and a matter not of microdetail but of principle. It is the No Lobby to stand with our veterans, and with Private Tommy Atkins, without whose brave service there would never have been any Good Friday peace agreement in the first place. Or it is the Aye Lobby, for two-tier justice and lawfare for years, largely at taxpayers’ expense, and against our own troops who had the courage to deploy to Northern Ireland and oppose the terrorists in the first place.”
“I say to all those veterans tonight that, if we get the chance, we will do whatever it takes to rescind Labour’s Bill and stand by them, just as we sought to do with our original legacy Act of 2023. Even the public oppose Labour’s pernicious plans, and a parliamentary petition entitled “Protect Northern Ireland Veterans from Prosecution”—it has been referred to—has amassed over a fifth of a million signatures, and led to a heated debate in Westminster Hall. The sketch writer Quentin Letts said that he had never seen Westminster Hall so packed before, and neither had I. Division lists last forever, and certainly until the next general election.”
“Lord West, a former Labour security Minister, has publicly cautioned Ministers over Labour’s proposals. Lord Glasman, founder and chairman of Blue Labour, recently said of Labour’s legacy plan: “We must reverse it as soon as possible”. The Royal British Legion has expressed its concerns about the Bill and its effects on veterans, as have Help for Heroes and the three veterans commissioners. This is a virtually friendless Bill. In conclusion, no other country on earth would treat its own brave veterans in this way—none. This is a truly wretched Bill, supported by Sinn Féin but opposed not just by Members on the Opposition Benches but by thousands of veterans and their highly experienced former commanders, who really do know better.”
“If time permitted, I could read out literally dozens of quotes, from more generals, commanding officers and a former regimental sergeant major of the SAS, down to junior non-commissioned officers—all of them criticising Labour’s proposals and their adverse effect on our armed forces, whether past, present or future. And yet still, the Northern Ireland Secretary knows better than all of them and he ploughs on regardless. When our elderly veterans, some of them in their 80s, some in failing health, and some who are literally Chelsea pensioners, for goodness’ sake, end up in court again, perhaps as early as next year, who do they think the public will believe? That is why even prominent Labour figures are now breaking ranks to tell the Government to change course.”
“Indeed, General Lord Dannatt, another former Chief of the General Staff, said recently: “If potential recruits to our Armed Forces do not believe that their Government will stand by them, when performing their duties in a lawful manner, then why risk joining at all?”. Just last week, in an unprecedented move in my 24 years in this House, nine very senior officers, including three previous heads of the British Army, Generals Carleton-Smith, Sanders and Wall, wrote an open letter to The Times heavily criticising the Government’s proposals and this associated Bill, which they powerfully described as a “direct threat to national security”.”
“This is opening up old wounds and setting anxiety off in families for whom this has never ended. Labour can’t hide behind us military wives saying we will get closure, because we won’t. It needs to remain in the past—stopping the tit-for-tat. We are the forgotten ones, still living out that nightmare.” What about the operational effects on recruitment and retention in today’s Army? Our armed forces already have more people leaving than joining, and this revival of lawfare will make that worse. Bluntly, fewer people will sign up and more will leave, especially among our special forces, which is a gift to our enemies and a worry to our friends.”
“Fourthly, and crucially, under the post Good Friday agreement Northern Ireland (Sentencing) Act 1998, which this Bill does nothing to repeal, even if an alleged IRA paramilitary could be arrested, charged and successfully prosecuted many years on, even if their likely letter of comfort was discarded, and even if they were somehow eventually convicted, the most they could serve, even for murder of one of those soldiers, would be two years—and that is before they are given early release. Lastly, and most powerfully of all, the wives themselves have decried it. Helen Kelly, the wife of 2 Para soldier Ned Kelly, brutally injured by a bomb on Op Banner in 1994—four years before the Good Friday agreement—said this yesterday about the Government’s plans: “If Labour think I will be given closure, that’s a load of rubbish!”
“Secondly, unlike with the British state, there is no IRA records office to conveniently trawl through in order to seek files and dossiers to help bring multiple cases to court. Such notes as the IRA ever kept were burnt or shredded long ago for obvious reasons. Thirdly, after the recent acquittal of Soldier F, where Judge Lynch KC, in a two-hour judgment, said the evidence from 53 years ago was “well short” of the standard required for a successful prosecution, the Northern Ireland Secretary himself admitted in the House on 3 November that it is “vanishingly difficult” to obtain convictions all these years on. Even he knows that it is not credible, yet for the veterans it is the process itself—the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, often for years and without remorse—that is the punishment as much as the eventual outcome.”
“On Sunday, I read the Bill again carefully, and parts 3, 4 and 5, in very clear terms, are the conveyor belt that I was speaking about. However, for those who still believe Ministers’ claims, here are the reasons that they are simply untenable. First, unlike our veterans, who were never given letters of comfort by the Blair Government, hundreds of paramilitaries were. Before anyone says, “Ah, but those letters have no legal validity”, tell that to the families of the four soldiers killed in 1982, alongside seven horses, by the alleged Hyde Park bomber John Downey, whose subsequent murder trial at the Old Bailey in 2014 collapsed when he produced his letter in court and the judge promptly abandoned proceedings. Indeed, that is how the existence of those hitherto secret letters—written at the insistence of Gerry Adams—even came to light.”
“My hon. Friend is making a good speech. I recently paid a shadow ministerial visit to Warton and Samlesbury, and we saw the penultimate Qatari Typhoon painted and ready to fly out, I think within a couple of days. The last one may even have gone now as well. To emphasise his point, this is extremely pressing, is it not?”
“I completely accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument about a blended force of Typhoon and F-35, but does he accept that one of the drawbacks of the F-35 is that we are effectively at the mercy of the joint programme office in the United States? That has led to serious delays in the integration of the Meteor, a highly capable air-to-air missile, into the F-35 because American systems have been prioritised. That is a bit of a problem, is it not?”
“Perhaps the Minister can provide some reassurance this morning. Finally, can the Minister guarantee to deliver the DIP, including for Typhoon, given that the MOD is now embroiled in a massive in-year cost-saving exercise, including efficiencies—spending cuts, in pub English—of £2.5 billion in 2025-26 alone? That is happening this financial year, right now; if that is not true, I will give way briefly to the Minister to deny it. Silence speaks volumes. I will finish by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde on securing this important debate. I hope that we will get clear answers to the straightforward questions that he and I and others have put to the Minister this morning. Typhoon is vital to our future, and we all want to know what will happen to it.”
“Can he guarantee that the DIP will be published in full by the time the House rises for the Christmas recess on 18 December, just over a month from now? In addition, can the Minister assure us that the DIP will contain a similar level of granularity to the previous, well-established equipment plans that were published annually under Conservative Governments? They gave a considerable amount of detail so that the defence industry had a fighting chance of planning. The Minister will know that a bunch of major programmes are awaiting their fate with the publication of the DIP, including the phase 4 enhancement and mark 2 radar, the new medium helicopter and the wider combat air mix referred to earlier. After all this time, yet another Ministry of Defence policy document, with a bunch of glossy photos but not much detail, will not suffice.”
“A respected former procurement Minister, Sir Jeremy Quin, was recently appointed chairman of Boeing UK. I hope he can bring his experience to bear to sort out this debacle. What can the Minister say today about Wedgetail and when it is finally likely to enter operational service with the Royal Air Force? In short, when will the aircraft be ready to fight, rather than just conduct air displays as it did at the Royal International Air Tattoo this summer? We await the Government’s long-promised defence investment plan, including details on the future of Typhoon. We were originally promised the DIP by the autumn. With the leaves already turning, I ask the Minister a straight question: is Christmas in the autumn?”
“As the Minister will appreciate, for those aircraft to be used most effectively, especially in the air defence role, they need to be closely integrated into the UK’s wider air defence network. We now have a major gap in that capability, however, following the withdrawal of the Boeing E-3D AWACS aircraft in 2021, because of the frustratingly delayed introduction into service of its vital replacement the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail. The delays to Wedgetail are a disgrace; the aircraft is years late and has flown only a relatively small number of test flights. Rumours are circulating within the industry that this is due to a mixture of factors, including the integration of the MESA—multi-role electronically scanned array—radar and serious problems with the UK E-7’s bespoke command and battle management system.”
“As the Minister knows, the putative initial operational capability for GCAP is 2035, partly driven by a very hard in-service date for the Japanese air force. An industrial consortium called Edgewing, headquartered in Reading, has recently been formed to manufacture the aircraft, but there are already worrying rumours of delays. Will the Minister take the opportunity today to confirm that GCAP/Tempest remains on schedule, and that Tempest will still succeed our oldest remaining tranche 2 Typhoons from 2035? The Typhoon is a fundamentally important part of the air defence of the United Kingdom and of our allies, and is likely to remain so for decades, even allowing for the gradual introduction of Tempest.”
“However, this summer they announced their intention to substitute 12 of those aircraft for the F-35A variant, which is capable of carrying the B61 tactical nuclear weapon, both in our defence of the United Kingdom and as part of our commitment to NATO. What more can the Minister tell us about how many F-35s the MOD still intends to buy, and what mix of variants that will comprise, in addition to Typhoon? A crucial future part of our sovereign air capability is represented by the global combat air programme, which aims to develop a world-class, sixth-generation combat aircraft—a system of systems, potentially including autonomous adjuncts. It is being built with Italy and Japan, and is to be known in RAF service as the Tempest.”
“In that regard, to date the UK has ordered some 48 F-35B short take-off and vertical landing variants for both the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force, almost 40 of which have now been delivered—minus one, which had an unfortunate accident leaving an aircraft carrier. However, both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have been highly critical of the slow build-up of the Lightning force. Can the Minister say anything more encouraging about that? The Government have intimated that they intend to buy another 26 F-35Bs, making 74 in total out of an originally planned order of 138.”
“Can the Minister say anything positive today about the future orders for Radar 2 and the associated P4E upgrade to the UK Typhoon programme, given that both—and we need both—are due to be in operational service by 2030? BAE trade union colleagues, whom I met recently at Samlesbury, have been pushing hard for a further domestic order of Typhoon aircraft, not least to maintain key skills at the Warton site. They have no greater champion than my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde—“Tory MP backs trade unions to the hilt”. I appreciate that that is not an easy decision for Ministers to take, and that it must be considered in the context of the wider mix of potential combat air system, as several hon. Members have said.”
“Tranche 2 aircraft can also be modified to accept Radar 2, but both tranches of aircraft require an important electronics update, known as P4E, in order to fully utilise the important new capability of Radar 2, including its crucial electronic warfare suite. However, as I understand it, the MOD has still not placed an order for the final development and installation of P4E, crucial though it is to Typhoon’s future. Although Radar 2 has now been fully developed—indeed, I was privileged to see a prototype of it on a shadow ministerial visit to Leonardo some months ago—the MOD has still not placed a production order even for an initial batch of Radar 2s. That too represents a very important part of the UK’s Typhoon sovereign capability. Without an effective radar, much of the other investment in Typhoon is nugatory.”
“Will the Minister confirm that when they retire some time in 2026-27, the RAF will provide replacements of either tranche 2 or tranche 3 aircraft to maintain the air defence of the Falkland Islands, not least for the peace of mind of the Falkland Islands Government? That would leave about 107 tranche 2 and 3 aircraft in RAF service. The tranche 3 aircraft are optimised to accept the new future generation of electronically scanned radar, now generally referred to as Radar 2, which has been under development at Leonardo in Edinburgh, in association with other European allies, for more than a decade.”
“As the debate is entitled “Typhoon Fighter Sovereign Capability”, I also take this opportunity to press the Minister on the future of the Typhoon in Royal Air Force service. The RAF has recently retired some 30 of the older tranche 1 Typhoons, and has been in the process of effectively cannibalising them in order to keep the more modern tranche 2 and tranche 3 aircraft flying. In terms of combat mass, that represents a worrying reduction of about a fifth of the entire RAF Typhoon fleet. The few remaining tranche 1s in service are now the fleet of Typhoons based at RAF Mount Pleasant.”
“As for MBDA, our missiles champion, is the Meteor missile also part of the sale to Turkey? Secondly, a suggestion has been that Qatar will sell its older Typhoons to Turkey as part of the arrangement and that that might yet lead, in turn, to further Typhoon orders at Warton. Is that the case and, if so, what can the Minister tell us? Thirdly, is the Minister able to say anything more about other potential Typhoon sales internationally, in particular to Poland or Saudi Arabia? A Typhoon order from Saudi would be a significant achievement and, indeed, negotiations to that effect have been under way for several years already. That, too, would be of great interest to the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde, so I wonder whether the Minister is in a position to say anything further about that this morning.”
“For the record, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), when he was the Minister with responsibility for procurement, spent a considerable amount of time promoting that deal, as did Ben Wallace, the then Secretary of State. Nevertheless, it would be churlish not to say well done to the Government for capitalising on those previous efforts and bringing the arrangement to fruition. That being so, I have some specific questions about the deal for the Minister which I hope that the House will welcome. First, can he confirm what tranche of Typhoon the new aircraft will be, including what variant of radar it will carry? That has implications not just for BAE Systems at Warton, but for our national radar manufacturer Leonardo, based in Edinburgh.”
“Recently, I turned 60 and, as a memorable birthday present, my local Conservative Association generously clubbed together to pay for a 30-minute, two-seater Spitfire flight in aircraft No. MT818 out of Biggin Hill, including overflying my constituency. I warmly thank the pilot, Barry, and all his colleagues at FlyASpitfire.com—who do what it says on the tin—for a wonderful day. At this time of remembrance, it brought home to me just how brave the few—some of whom had barely 10 hours on type—were in flying that iconic aircraft in mortal combat during the battle of Britain. I am deeply grateful for that truly unforgettable experience. It will literally live with me for the rest of my life. Returning to the present, I also congratulate the Minister on the fact that the Government have now sealed the deal to export some 20 Typhoons to Turkey.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, as we debate the important role that the Typhoon programme plays in our nation’s defence and industrial strength. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden) on securing this important debate. Since he entered the House almost a year and a half ago, he has proved a doughty champion for his constituents, for the defence industry in the north-west more generally and for his constituents at Warton for whom the Typhoon programme is crucial in particular. He made a very good speech to open the debate, and I know that he will continue to fight tenaciously for his constituents’ interests as this Parliament plays out. I also take the opportunity to pay a personal thank you related to air defence.”
“Anyone who has stood at the Menin Gate when the buglers of the Ypres fire brigade play the “Last Post”, as it swirls around that famous arch, knows that it is a truly moving and emotive ceremony to behold.”
“Indeed, the dogged, stubborn defence—often against superior odds—is a recurrent feature of British military tradition: including the English archers at Agincourt; the great siege of Gibraltar; Wellington’s army at Waterloo; the 24th Foot at Rorke’s Drift, which saw 11 Victoria Crosses awarded, the most ever awarded in a single action; “the few” of Fighter Command in the battle of Britain, to whom the Minister also referred; the Royal Navy escorting the Atlantic convoys; the Glorious Glosters at the Imjin river in Korea; and many more besides, including more recently in the middle east. There are, of course, many comparable examples from the first world war, not least the stand of the British Expeditionary Force at Mons and the subsequent first battle of Ypres.”
“In my experience, every community tends to do remembrance slightly differently to account for local circumstances, but each ceremony has common elements with which we are all familiar: the emotive playing of the “Last Post”, the two-minute silence and, usually, the famous epitaph from the 2nd Infantry Division memorial—universally known as the Kohima epitaph—with those famous and stirring words: “When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, we gave our today.” The battle of Kohima, brilliantly described in Field Marshal the Viscount Slim’s 1956 book, “Defeat into Victory”—arguably one of the best books ever written on the whole concept of generalship—was a classic example of a dogged defence by British and, crucially, Commonwealth forces in stopping the attempted Japanese advance into India in mid-1944.”
“I was privileged to attend the Royal British Legion festival of remembrance last Saturday evening, which remains as moving an occasion as when I first attended as an MOD Minister over a decade ago. I pay tribute to the extremely valuable role that the Royal British Legion plays in both shaping our whole concept of remembrance and in supporting our veterans, some 2 million or so of whom are still living today. As well as the national commemorations, including those at the Cenotaph, the Royal British Legion, often supported by local armed forces personnel, plays a vital role in organising services at a community level in all our constituencies, up and down the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.”
“It is a privilege to open this debate for His Majesty’s Opposition on 11 November, Armistice Day—a date on which the nation pauses and gives thanks for the sacrifice of our armed forces so that we can live in a free country. It is a pleasure to follow the Minister for the Armed Forces, and I endorse his comments about the value of our armed forces and the vital role they play in the nation’s contribution to remembrance. We all thank them for their service. The Minister rightly paid tribute to the operational role of our armed forces, which remain as vigilant as ever around the clock to keep us safe in the 21st century. Nevertheless, perhaps he will forgive me if in my contribution I too take something of a historical perspective on the vital role that our armed forces have played in the defence of our nation down the years.”
“In response to the philosopher Edmund Burke’s famous challenge that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, twice in the past century our own good men and women across the nation stood up to and defeated such evil, with our armed forces in the lead. Rightfully, we solemnly remember that sacrifice each and every November, including in this House tonight.”
“Before I am accused of selective quoting, the same paragraph of the SDR goes on to say: “This vision could be achieved more quickly should circumstances demand it and should more resources be made available.” Notwithstanding those words, with much of the new money in the SDR unavailable for at least two years and a multibillion-pound programme of in-year efficiency savings now under way, I merely ask whether we have really learned the lessons of the past century as well as we might have. In conclusion, we in these islands have always ultimately been prepared to make great sacrifices to uphold the freedom of Europe, and indeed of the wider world. That is why, given our history, we should never forget that the first duty of Government remains the defence of the realm.”
“While there was a great deal of good in the SDR, not least the intention to speed up our highly bureaucratic procurement system—about which I have always held firm views, as the Minister knows—I nevertheless worry, given increasing threats from Russia and now also from China, about whether the Ministry of Defence today displays the genuine sense of urgency that is required to meet the challenges we now all clearly face.”
“Bearing in mind the Minister’s caution, I was genuinely concerned to read one passage of the Government’s recent strategic defence review—its seminal defence policy document. On page 43, under the heading “Transforming UK Warfighting”, it states: “This Review charts a new era for Defence, restoring the UK’s ability to deter, fight, and win—with allies—against states with advanced military forces by 2035.” I say to the Minister in all sincerity that that seems to contain an echo of the 10-year rule of the 1920s.”
“The Ukrainians are in effect now fighting for our freedom too, and we must back them to the hilt as a result. We also see a major rearmament by China; North Korea continues to develop even longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, now with support from Russia; and Iran continues to exert malign influence across the middle east, even after the successful American strike on its emerging nuclear capabilities. The circumstances may have changed, but the principle remains exactly the same. We in the western democracies cannot drop our guard against the growing powers of the 21st-century autocracies—something that those who fought in the second world war would instinctively understand only too well.”
“I mention all this not just because I studied history and then military history at university, but because if—as Members of this House believe, and as I have always believed—the ultimate goal of our armed forces is to save lives by deterring war and persuading any potential aggressor that they could not prevail, then even today we all need to ask ourselves, regardless of party, whether we are doing enough to secure the peace by maintaining sufficiently strong armed forces to provide such a vital deterrent effect. It is a historical fact that twice in the last century, this country paid an immense cost in both blood and treasure to defeat militarism. Today, the threats are somewhat different, with a war on our doorstep in Europe following Russia’s barbaric and illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
“History tells us again and again that the appeasement of dictators does not work, just as it failed to work in the 1930s The 10-year rule, which by that stage had lasted well over a decade, was eventually rescinded in 1935-36 as Britain began to rearm in response to Hitler’s increasingly bellicose behaviour. Nevertheless, that rearmament, and comparable action by our allies, was ultimately insufficient to deter what then became the second world war—a brutal conflict in which over 50 million people died, far more even than had perished in the supposed war to end all wars some two decades before.”
“Indeed, as a mood of pacifism gripped the nation, in 1933—the same year in which Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany—the earnest students of the Oxford Union, who are having their own problems at the moment, passed a motion by a majority of over two to one that “this House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country”. The subsequent policy of appeasement from the 1930s British establishment—the blob of their day—was as erroneous then as it would be today. Authoritarian dictators tend to admire strength, particularly their own, and despise weakness—a lesson that any British Government, including this one, would do well to remember.”
“This key planning assumption became the centrepiece of British strategic theory and, with strong endorsement from the Treasury, the 10-year rule soon became a rolling one, extended on an annual basis. Given that no war was expected for at least a decade, this allowed for major economies in the financing of the armed forces and an associated running-down of all three services. As one example of how seriously the 10-year rule was taken and implemented, even Winston Churchill during his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1920s exerted pressure to cut back on his beloved Royal Navy—the same service he had fought tenaciously to expand as First Lord of the Admiralty barely a decade before.”
“I completely agree with my right hon. and gallant Friend—the history of the 14th Army is a proud one. It was a marvellous amalgam, under a brilliant leader, of people from countries and races from around the entire Commonwealth who fought with one common aim: freedom. They were sometimes called the forgotten army, but they are not forgotten tonight. After the horrors of the trenches and an understandable aversion to war in the 1920s, with Britain exhausted—both financially and emotionally—by the horrors of the great war, the Government of the day introduced what came to be known as the 10-year rule. This was not just the policy of the War Office or the Admiralty, as they then were; it was a pan-Whitehall edict, the essence of which was that Britain would not have to fight another major war for at least 10 years.”
“There would be no greater betrayal of the sacrifices that we have been debating this evening than would occur if we as a House, with all the other matters that we have to consider, somehow became so distracted or complacent that we failed to act with sufficient clarity of purpose and determination to deter a future major conflict, perhaps even a global one, from breaking out again in our lifetimes. To put it, perhaps, in another way, we must now conduct ourselves, in “our today”, in such a way as never to risk the security of “our tomorrow”. With that sincere warning, I pay tribute to our valiant armed forces, both past and present, and to everything that they do, day in and day out, to keep us and our country safe and free—lest we forget.”
“As a young person myself, having recently turned 60— [Laughter . ] In all seriousness, at the remembrances services that I attended this weekend—like, I am sure, many Members on both sides of the House—I was struck by the number of young people from, for instance, the Cubs, the Scouts and the Brownies who attended those services and, in many cases, participated, and laid tributes, wreaths and crosses of their own. I took great heart from that, and I believe that there is hope yet.”
“Can my right hon. Friend confirm for the parliamentary record that of the nine generals who have written this unprecedented letter, three formerly served as Chief of the General Staff—in other words, the professional head of the British Army?”
“As General Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, said at the weekend, “if potential recruits to our Armed Forces do not believe that their government will stand by them when performing their duties in a lawful manner, why risk joining at all?” He was speaking about Labour’s new Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which could see Northern Ireland veterans, without whom there would never have been a Good Friday agreement in the first place, in the dock again by next year. The Minister called opponents of this “naive”. What is her response to the former head of the British Army and the brave soldiers he led—were they all naive, too?”
“The former Labour Security Minister Lord West said recently that we “shouldn’t be doing” this. Lord Glasman, the founder of Blue Labour, said: “We must reverse it as soon as possible.” The hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) said that “to continue this against one side makes no sense.” With a Labour rebellion clearly brewing, and given that many Northern Ireland veterans were initially recruited from red wall seats, why are Labour Ministers insisting on driving their Back Benchers into the Division Lobby just to do Sinn Féin and their old comrades in the IRA a favour?”
“As a constituency MP, I have had some appalling experiences with FirstPort, at Oak Lodge in Hockley and at King Georges Court in Rayleigh. The latter is a four-storey McCarthy Stone development that it manages, where the lift was out of action for almost a year. Is not the fundamental problem with FirstPort that it is ultimately owned by several offshore venture capital companies that are very aggressive in seeking revenue from their tenants, but do not seem very willing to provide a decent quality of service in return?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have just been debating the important matter of asylum seekers in MOD accommodation. Could you confirm, as I hope Hansard will, that in the nearly 37 minutes that we have spent debating this important matter, no Member of Reform has been in the Chamber or, indeed, made any contribution whatsoever?”
“My right hon. Friend is making an excellent, poignant speech. In 2013, as the then Veterans Minister, I had the great honour of going to South Korea with His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester to represent the Government at the 60th anniversary of the armistice. As my right hon. Friend knows, the South Koreans refer to this day to the countries, like ours, that sent them aid as the sending states. I was very struck by the tremendous lengths to which the South Koreans went to look after our veterans who attended the commemorations. They were treated with immense reverence. Will my right hon. Friend allow me to place on the record today my great thanks to the South Koreans for everything that they do to remember the sending states and those troops who came to defend democracy in their land?”
“My hon. Friend highlights the fact that the Glorious Glosters were awarded a US Presidential Unit Citation, which is extremely rare for a non-American unit. Another link is that the Korean war memorial in Washington has a very brief inscription that reads simply, “Freedom is not free.” Does my hon. Friend agree that the defence of Gloster Hill by the Glorious Glosters, and the casualties they suffered, are a living embodiment of that great motto?”