---

Medals (Armed Forces Personnel)

I echo my hon. Friend's congratulations to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) on securing this debate and pursuing this campaign along with my constituent, to whom he referred earlier and who is running the campaign with the Daily Mirror. I underline the point that my hon. Friend is making about the fact that this type of award is part of the deal. I think that this type of award should be seen as part of the military covenant. Our failure to honour our dead and injured servicemen and women and their families in this way is actually a failure in our civilian side of the bargain. We, as politicians, have a responsibility to do all that we can to meet that part of the bargain and this type of award is a relatively cost-free way of doing that.