---

First World War Soldiers (Pardons)

I shall be relatively brief, because we need to give the Minister as much time as possible to respond. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) not only on securing the debate but on the measured and thoughtful way in which he spoke. I do not think that there is another Member in the House who has his breadth and depth of knowledge of historical matters. I also congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) and my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) on their speeches. We need to recognise that we are on the edge of history; we are on the last page of the last chapter of the first world war. There are 10 or a dozen amazing survivors from that great conflict; I believe that there are no survivors from Germany. In a relatively short time the final combatant will pass on, and it would be fitting if we could close that chapter and the book of those who fought by granting a pardon, at least as far as can be conceived, and following the good examples of the approaches taken by the Irish Republic, Canada and New Zealand. The debate is of course deficient without the presence and contribution of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who, as we have heard, has campaigned for 10 years or more to bring about justice. The early-day motion that he tabled in the first year or two that I was a Member of Parliament—in 1997 or 1998—attracted more signatures than any other early-day motion before or since. I was in the House on 24 July 1998 when the then Minister for the Armed Forces gave his statement and we debated it. It was the most moving debate that I have experienced in my eight or nine years in the House. It was clearly thought through by the then Minister but the conclusion was not the one for which we are still searching. I should point out that the debate will go on until people feel that justice has been done. Clearly, the 306 people who were shot at dawn included many who it was quickly realised should not have been executed. Lessons were learned, because by the second world war there were no executions—certainly not on the scale and for the purposes for which an example had to be set, as if such an exercise were a sort of decimation, when one in 10 along the line was stabbed to death as in ancient history. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk for drawing attention to ““Oh! What a Lovely War”” and ““Blackadder Goes Forth””. That satire really made an impact on people of my generation, because we could see not only the futility of war, but the stupidity of those who were responsible for such actions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South said, not all officers led from the front. Of course, there were many brave officers, but there were those who did not get stuck in as the men at the front did. I first became aware of the scale of the first world war when, as a scout in 1961, I did my hiker's badge. As a project, I recorded information on village war memorials. I realised quickly that the list of names in respect of the first world war was considerably longer than that for the second world war. Clearly, various lessons had been learned, not least the stupidity of sending men into a barrage of machine gun bullets. Cowardice, courts martial and so on were more measured and understood in the second world war. Medical knowledge was improving all the time and it is now even better than it was in the second world war. There have been calls for a state funeral for the last person from the great war to pass on. I urge caution because through my Royal British Legion connections I am told that it does not necessarily know all the names of those who took part in the war. In the past six to nine months, one or two names have emerged of which it was not aware. Would the family want a state funeral? If they did agree to it, it is possible that someone else may emerge who had not wished it to be known that he was a survivor and a brave soldier from the first world war. Will the Minister take serious note of what has been said and realise that, although we have moved on from 1998, the campaign for the pardon has not weakened? As we come to the final page of the final chapter, I urge the Government to find a way in which to give posthumous pardon to those 306 people.