---

Ministry of Defence

That proves the power of an all-party delegation to get things sorted just like that. Something must be done about the transportation of our young men and women back to the UK from Iraq. I cannot speak about Afghanistan because I have not been there, although I hope that the invitation is in the post. A memory that will always stay with me from when we boarded the plane is the sea of faces with people all wearing battle fatigues and looking forward to their return to the UK for one week, two weeks or whatever it was. This was on a chartered holiday flight. That might be all right for a two-hour flight from Gatwick down to Tenerife, but cramming that number of our young men and women into a plane where legroom is at a premium for an eight-hour flight is not the right way to treat them.