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Armed Forces Personnel

Absolutely. The military covenant is not laid down didactically in the Armed Forces Act. It was debated at great length when the measure went through the House and the other place, and it is absolutely right that it should not be set in stone in those sorts of ways, although clearly we can talk about it. However, the armed forces, which are meant to be the subject of the covenant, will be pretty unimpressed if it is not followed with tangibles. We will always ask for more, particularly those of us who represent military or naval areas, and no doubt we will never be entirely satisfied. However, in difficult circumstances, the Government have continued the best of the work done by the previous Administration in trying to improve the lot of those who serve in our armed forces. Mention has been made of the chief coroner. The Royal British Legion is an excellent organisation in almost all respects, but I take issue with it on this matter. I have counselled caution on its insistence that we retain a chief coroner. I have a particular interest: many of the military inquests that have been necessary over the past 10 years have taken place in Trowbridge in my constituency. I have visited those inquests, and I have spoken with David Masters, the then coroner. Coroners are independent judicial office holders, and have been so for hundreds of years. In this respect, part of the value of the coronial service has been that it has been prepared to be very outspoken, and there are Ministers who served in the previous Administration who bear the scars on their backs of the coroner's many interventions, particularly on kit. That is absolutely as it should be. The whole point about the coroner's contribution in the past 10 years is that he has spoken out, particularly on kit, and I have absolutely no doubt that that policy was changed for the better as a result of the comments of David Masters and Andrew Walker. I would be very cautious about altering a system that has delivered such good effect to the benefit of men and women at the front line. This week we remember the fallen. Remembrance is an integral part of the covenant between the armed forces and the nation. In 2014, we will commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the great war. In the UK, we have a tradition of commemorating and celebrating the end of conflict, not the beginning, which is a good thing. However, we need to make an exception in this case, because the great war was the seminal event of modern history. Not only did its outbreak herald four years of desperate, terrible carnage, but it set in place the conditions for the second world war. Both those conflicts have shaped and formed how we live today, and it is appropriate that we take the opportunity to reflect on and commemorate the early days of the great war. There are a number of reasons for that. First, it is not right that the sacrifice of those millions of people between 1914 and 1918 should go unrecognised 100 years on. What sort of people would we be if we did not mark out this anniversary? It is a deeply human thing to wish to commemorate sacrifice on that scale. However, there are also lots of things to be learned from the great war, and there are messages for us today, particularly for children in our schools who, as has been mentioned already, we hope will grow up in a world without conflict of that nature, but who, nevertheless, need to know the full horrors of war, so far as they possibly can, so that we may try to avoid them as best we can. The UK Government have been criticised for being slow off the mark. That is a little unfair. Next year we will, I hope, have our annus mirabilis, in that we will celebrate Her Majesty the Queen's diamond jubilee and the London Olympics. However, we should keep our eye on what is to follow. This week President Sarkozy will unveil the Musée de la Grande Guerre in Meaux, a purpose-built museum for the great war, and it has been suggested that the British Government should do something similar. However, I would ever so gently point out that the British Government did do something similar, in 1917, before the great war was even concluded. I have been extremely impressed by the preparations of the Imperial War museums—plural—to mark the beginning of the great war. If fully carried out, their programme will, in my view, eclipse the Musée de la Grande Guerre in France, and I look forward to seeing it. As we approach 2014 and decide how we will mark and commemorate the occasion, it is important that we focus heavily on the local and the parochial, the human and the personal. All of us as constituency MPs will have examples of small-scale projects in our areas that celebrate the contribution of local people—I certainly do in my area. I hope very much that all those projects, supported by the lottery fund and others, will come together in a national memorial—co-ordinated, I suspect, by the Imperial War museums—so that we can show a proper mark of respect in 2014 and commemorate the occasion in a way of which we can all be proud.