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Armed Forces Personnel

I have listened with interest, amusement and, often, respect to the words of the shadow Minister. I hope that he will have a stiff word with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who interrupted him, in the middle of a perfectly good argument, to talk about something that has absolutely nothing to do with this debate. He was a troublesome member of the Select Committee on Defence, but an extremely effective one, just as he was an effective Minister. So, too, is my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, whose words I also listened to with interest and respect. I wish to thank the Government for holding this debate on armed forces personnel and for its timing. I have been looking through my records and it seems that this is the first debate on personnel since January 2009. Can that really be the case? I say that because it is our armed forces personnel and the training that they receive which make our armed forces the envy of the world. I have to say that the arrangements for having these debates on armed forces matters or on defence equipment are simply not working. I am relieved and pleased that the Leader of the House is having discussions on how to change things. One matter that I would point out to the Backbench Business Committee—I cannot immediately see any of its members in the Chamber—is that the pressure of time in this debate is such that there is a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, on a day when there is no vote at the end. There is no shortage of interest in this matter and I hope that the Committee's members will take that point away with them if ever we go back to ask for further time. It is not surprising that there is no shortage of interest in this issue, given what thearmed forces are going through. There is turmoil in the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces because of the degree of change that is having to be forced through. There are redundancies, restrictions on money for exercising and training, and changes to the allowances, not to mention the fighting that they are doing at the same time. The Defence Committee has been doing work on all those things, as the House would expect. Sometimes people believe that it is the job and the role of the Defence Committee to speak for the armed forces, but strictly speaking that is not true. We are not a lobbying organisation for the armed forces or for the defence industry. Our role is to ensure that the MOD does its work as well as it can in the circumstances. Our lobbying role is to lobby for the country; we are not lobbyists for the armed forces. Lobbying for the country, we realise, as people and as a Committee interested in defence, that the country wants certain things. It wants its armed forces to be treated fairly and properly. It also wants its armed forces treated with respect and honour, and the Royal Wootton Bassett phenomenon is a demonstration of that. There has been a discussion in the newspapers over the past few days about the issue of wearing a poppy and about the question of whether people feel compelled to wear one. There was even an article in The Independent by Robert Fisk entitled, ““Do those who flaunt the poppy on their lapels know that they mock the war dead?”” I read that article not with anger, but actually with a degree of sympathy. However, I concluded that it had got entirely the wrong end of the stick. He talked about his father, who had fought in the first world war, stopping wearing his poppy because he did not want to see so many damn fools wearing it. His father felt that those who wore the poppy had no idea what the trenches of France were like, and what it felt like to have your friends die beside you and then to confront their brothers, wives, lovers or parents. Of course, to a large extent that is true; those of us who have not been in the armed forces cannot imagine quite the horror that is involved. We may think we can but we cannot. Few of us in this House—there are honourable exceptions, and I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) in his place—have had that experience. As Wilfred Owen pointed out,"““Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori””—" it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one's country—is actually a lie. Horace, who wrote those words, did not follow his own advice. Interestingly, he did fight at the battle of Philippi, but he later claimed that he survived that battle only by running away, having thrown his shield away. I do not blame him for that. But we who have not fought do not wear the poppy because we claim to understand what war is truly like—as I say, we cannot do that. We wear a poppy for other reasons. Robert Fisk's article says that he declined to lay a wreath at the Menin gate because it was something of which he was not worthy. I think that that is a shame because, in those terms, which of us is worthy? I do lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday, and I do not do so because I am worthy—I am not. I do so for many of the constituents I represent: the incredibly brave Chinook pilots who rescue our wounded under fire; the former Gurkhas who have done so much for our country; the families who bear so much of the brunt of death and injury; and the pensioners who survived the second world war and who fought in the Korean war. Those are the people who are worthy and I do it for them. I also wear a poppy. That is partly because of my grandfather, who, like Robert Fisk's father, fought in the first world war but who died at the second battle of Ypres. But wearing a poppy is also a public acknowledgement of debt, a public reminder of continuing need in the armed forces community, a public display of respect and a public expression of thanks. It is really not a public announcement, ““Look I've given the Royal British Legion a bit of money.”” Although it is true that sometimes politicians and others may feel obliged to wear a poppy because if they fail to do so they will be subject to public disapproval, one really should not get hung up on that sort of thing. The vast majority of people wear a poppy out of pleasure, and they wear it because they want to, rather than because they must—at least, that is my reading of the situation.