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First World War Veteran (State Funeral)

: I say to the hon. Gentleman that we have been in contact with the veterans association and the Royal British Legion throughout. Obviously, we have not tried to contact individual veterans directly because that would be quite wrong. We have left that to the associations. By and large, I understand that there is a compliant sense among many veterans: they think that this would be a good idea. However, that could change and there may be one or two who do not agree. Of course, we should have a commemoration if we cannot get a state funeral and the family's word is final, but I have gone for a state funeral because it is something peculiar and special in which the whole country would take part and in which we would celebrate, commemorate and recognise the peculiar sacrifice of not just this individual, but of the individual on behalf of the whole of their generation. I urge the Government to do whatever they can and they have already expressed that wish to me. We have Remembrance Sunday, and to those who say that that is enough, I say that there is a problem with institutionalising commemoration. There is the idea that we have set this Sunday aside, but sometimes we must challenge ourselves a little more so that when we say ““we remember””, we really do remember, rather than just go through the motions. Something special, such as a state funeral, would be necessary to do that. I conclude in the words of someone who is far more eloquent than me, who died a week before Armistice day and is now remembered as one of the greatest of the first world war poets:"““Move him into the sun—""Gently its touch awoke him once,""At home, whispering of fields unsown.""Always it woke him, even in France,""Until this morning and this snow.""If anything might rouse him now""The kind old sun will know.""Think how it wakes the seeds,—""Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.""Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,""Full-nerved—still warm—too hard to stir?""Was it for this the clay grew tall?""—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil""To break earth's sleep at all?””" I hope those words come through clearly to all who read them. They are the words of Wilfred Owen.