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Queen's Diamond Jubilee

My Lords, if there is to be a Commonwealth dimension to the celebration, I suggest that in any military dimension we should invite contingents from Commonwealth countries. Many of the Asian and Afro-Caribbean citizens of this country have parents or grandparents who fought in the Second World War as elements of other Commonwealth or imperial armies, the largest of which was of course the Indian Army. Those armed forces now provide the dominant contribution to UN peacekeeping forces. We in this country are very bad at linking and symbolising the extent to which our military contribution is now undertaken with other European and Commonwealth countries. That might provide an opportunity to educate our people about how much our contribution in the Second World War and up to today has been in co-operation with the armed forces of other countries with close links to us.