Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2025 · China Audit · Hansard source

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  First of all, before we go to the political knockabout, let me say that I have spoken critically on this issue no matter who was in government; let us settle that before we go on. I want to give the Foreign Secretary a quick audit of exactly what should have been said. China threatens Taiwan, has invaded the South China seas and is having massive disputes with the Philippines. There is genocide, slave labour, organ harvesting and transnational repression. There have been attacks on Hong Kong dissidents here, and Hong Kong dissidents are constantly under threat. There have been cyber-attacks on the UK. China supports Myanmar’s repressive military regime and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also supports North Korea and Iran. It has trashed the Sino-British treaty on Hong Kong, arrested Jemmy Lai and placed sanctions on UK MPs, and it thieves all the intellectual property from private companies. What a record! And what would we balance against that? Some potential trade? This question has already been asked, in a way, but it is worth repeating. On the embassy decision, it was said clearly in the media that China would not apply again after the refusal from Tower Hamlets unless it received assurances from the UK Government. Can the Foreign Secretary tell me that China has not received any assurances? Or has it received private assurances from the Government that it will get what it wants, and will get this embassy?

• 24 Jun 2025 · National Security Strategy · Hansard source

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  Before the most recent election, the Intelligence and Security Committee produced a very comprehensive report on China, making it very clear that it considers China to be one of our greatest threats. I am therefore astonished that, in the whole of today’s strategy, there are three paragraphs that deal with China, and that it raises one or two issues and then proceeds to take a different decision. It talks about there being a problem with human rights—which is genocide—and the cyber-security attacks on the UK, as well as China’s espionage, interference in our democracy, sanctioning of people like myself and undermining of our economic security, and its being guilty of transnational repression. China also ships arms to Myanmar, keeping that brutal regime in charge, at the same time as building the largest navy. To what degree do three paragraphs satisfy the idea that China should surely be in the list of threats?

• 24 Jun 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. While the Foreign Secretary is sitting here, I thought it relevant to record that we have just heard that the American Government have put in a second disapproval, for security reasons, to the granting of a Chinese embassy in the proposed location.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I understand that many others want to speak, so I am going make a bit of progress if she does not mind. The other important point, when we think about what our vote today is all about, is the behaviour of the professional bodies that have been consulted on this, which have come out for the most part very strongly opposed to this legislation.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I simply do not agree with the hon. Lady on that reading. The professional bodies are completely divided, and most have come out in opposition to the nature of this legislation. It is all very well for her to say that, and I appreciate her right to say it, and I hope she gets to speak later, but I just do not agree with it. As was said earlier in the debate, the whole issue of mental capacity is not dealt with properly in the structure of this Bill. The hon. Member for Spen Valley talked about this earlier, and she was absolutely right. Even the amendments that were proposed were not always accepted, and we are left now with some areas that will be deeply troubling. We simply cannot accept that the Lords must make these changes for us, for we have to make them first. That is the key. The one big important area here—I absolutely agree with my constituency neighbour the Health Secretary on this—is that we talk a lot about choice in dying, but how is that choice informed if palliative care in the UK is simply not good enough? Again, the Mother of the House spoke about this, and there are so many people affected: the most vulnerable; the people furthest away from institutions; and the ones who understand least how to work the health service or their local authority, and who rely mostly on us to try and break through. They will be faced with this problem more than almost anybody else, because they look in fear on these institutions. I helped to set up a children’s hospice, which I think was the first in London. There have been many more since, but children’s hospices, as we know, are really badly treated by Government spending, pretty much no matter who is in power. They have less than anybody else. Haven House, which I helped to set up and raise money for, has given a very strong quote, which I think represents much of what most of those hospices have said: “We would fully agree that a change in the law would have very significant consequences for the delivery of palliative care services and would be challenging given the existing resource pressures that we face. The hospice sector is experiencing significant financial pressures and the exceptional palliative care services we provide are not financially sustainable. The introduction of assisted dying would create new and demanding requirements for palliative care services and hospices in particular. It is therefore vital, whether or not the current legislation is passed, that the government takes urgent action to resolve” this matter. That is the case today. We cannot just say, “Well, that’s not our problem. Palliative care can be changed.” The trouble is that we have been unable to make the necessary changes to palliative care because we take such parti pris positions. That is the problem we face. I will end with this. I will vote against the Bill, mostly because I believe it is fundamentally unworkable and will lead to huge problems. We have seen what has happened elsewhere internationally—Canada, Oregon and various other places—where legislation slides and slides again as more and more amendments have to be made because these things are not workable. To those who have any doubt, I simply say this. This is Third Reading; it is not Second Reading—it is not an “in principle” debate. We had that debate, and now we have to decide whether we should send this unworkable piece of legislation to another place, which is unelected, to make the decision for us because we cannot come to a conclusion. We cannot let this go through.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have not spoken so far in these debates, but I have listened and attended on pretty much all occasions. I am moved to speak today because I am concerned. This is the point that the hon. Member for Lewisham North (Vicky Foxcroft) made, but what is this debate today about? This debate is not about the principle of what we believe in when it comes to assisted dying—whether we are opposed to it or in favour of it. We had that debate on Second Reading. As the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), made very clear—in what I must say was an excellent speech—and as others have too, today’s Third Reading debate is about what we are about to pass on to the House of Lords, which will become law. And the single question we have to ask ourselves is: is this genuinely workable now? The hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), who moved the motion, knows that I have a high regard for her—I have worked with her on other things—but I honestly have to say that I simply cannot see how we in this House can pass this piece of legislation through to the other House, in the vague hope that somehow it will do better than us and make changes such that it will become a workable piece of legislation, and that is because this is a private Member’s Bill. If a Government were to introduce a Bill like this, we would see a great deal more input and a huge amount more checking with all those bodies. For example, we were told on Second Reading that the safeguards and protections we were sending to Committee would somehow become the most robust and strongest in the world. In fact, in Committee they got weakened, not strengthened, and that is the problem in all this.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  These bikes often accelerate fast, and only someone who is used to riding something that can move quickly on two wheels can do that. If not, they will go off the back. In a car, they would be restrained by the seat, but that is not the case on a bike or motorcycle. Knowing that does take some instruction—being ready, leaning into it and all the rest of it. My main point is that that is a good illustration of how we are being a bit too casual about these modes of transport, and too many young kids do not understand that they should have some training. For their sake, we should do more on this issue.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am all in favour of public campaigns and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be a very good idea for people to know that what they were buying was illegal. I suspect many of them already do so. That notwithstanding, if such a campaign could be backed up by a penalty for selling illegal bikes in shops, that would be a far better way of dealing with it. Right now, lots of kids do not know that the bikes are illegal, and they go and take these things and they can pay for them, and that is where the danger comes from. We are shutting the door too late. These kids have gone on to the roads, they have created an accident and they have killed themselves. That is too late for us. What we need to do is get ahead of this and try to figure it out completely. The final bit of this issue is the fact that people can change the monitors inside the boxes, even on the legal bikes, and lots of them do so. We see them going down the road at 30 mph, which is incredibly dangerous. I am a motorcyclist, I have to say, but Members should not go looking for the leather jacket; I left it at home.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to new clause 5, which stands in my name and is supported by hon. Friends in different political positions across the House. But, before I do so, I want to congratulate the Government—that is unusual from the Opposition, but I will do so anyway. I think that the Minister will know what I am about to say. The cuckooing amendment, which was moved in the last Parliament—the previous Government and she, in particular, were in discussions on that—has been passported through, as it were, so that cuckooing will be a criminal offence. That will hugely help those who have their houses taken over—the vulnerable and the elderly—and, where crimes are committed from those houses, the police will have a reason to go in without explicit knowledge of the crime being committed other than the cuckooing. To that extent, I thank the Government for making that a law. Hopefully it will go through without too much problem in the other place. I and many others appreciate that enormously. New clause 5 is consequential to an amendment to an earlier Bill on reckless and dangerous cycling, because there were no offences that were relevant to that and people were being killed and injured as a result of cyclists’ bad behaviour on the roads. One person in particular who campaigned for that amendment was Matt Briggs, and he was the reason that I brought that amendment forward. The Government accepted that amendment and it is now bound into legislation. However, there was an issue at the time about the danger of e-bikes. We know from talking to the police that e-bikes are now becoming responsible for some of the worst crimes on the streets, involving antisocial and threatening behaviour. They are silent and they can creep up on people rather quickly, and a lot of things that were being snatched by people on motorised scooters are now being snatched using e-bikes.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I bow before my right hon. Friend’s greater knowledge in these matters, having headed up the Department. I simply say that for this particular purpose, I agree with her. I am urging the Government to take this matter away and look at it in the other place. Although I will not press my amendment, because legal bikes are incorporated in the earlier cycling amendment that I put forward and the Government accepted, we need more work on illegal bikes and e-scooters. My worry, as I have said again and again, is that people can buy these things without any qualification whatsoever, whereas if I as a motorcyclist buy a bike, I have to be able to demonstrate that I am qualified to ride it away from the shop. People are not required to do so with e-bikes and e-scooters, so there is a peculiarity. Everywhere else in our legislation, we follow through. This one has dropped through the grid, and I therefore urge the Minister and the Department to look closely at the matter and see whether we can define that better in the other place and ensure that shops are unable to sell those bikes. I will not press this new clause because I think we are at the right place so far with the Government.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Not a toolmaker?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Don’t get excited—it’s not that great! Motorcyclists have to be tested even more than car drivers. There are balancing tests and they have to know everything like that. This is absolutely critical, because it is a slightly more dangerous mode of transport—more exciting, yes, but more dangerous. Someone cannot buy a motorcycle in a shop and take it away unless they are able to show their licence and that they are qualified to ride that bike, and that really requires instruction, but people can buy e-bikes—these electric vehicles—without any sort of licence. It seems bizarre that that should be allowed. Even though we want people not to use petrol, diesel and all the rest of it because of the environment, this goes beyond that.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right, and I hope the Government will respond to that. However, she will forgive me if I focus on the essence of new clause 5, which is e-bikes. The definition of a legal e-bike is one that uses pedals and also uses electricity to assist the cyclist. All the other ones are illegal. This brings me to the problem that, if this measure is going to go through into law, as it will, will the Government press the police to start arresting and prosecuting not only the people who deliberately use e-bikes for nefarious purposes but more importantly, those who just cycle dangerously on footpaths? E-bikes are now more dangerous than bicycles in the sense that they are e-bicycles and therefore get up to higher speeds. Even though the speeds are supposed to be governed, they are still higher than most cyclists will get up to in the normal act of pedalling their way to work.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  It is funny that my hon. Friend raises that point, because I was just about to get on to it. I am glad he has pinched my speech, but we are on the same side, so let me thank him for getting ahead of me. I reinforce that point: the Government now need to decide whether to do something about that issue in the other place. All non-bicycle electricity-supported cycles are legal, but all the others are either illegal or have to be used on the road and therefore have to qualify for road use, which means in many cases taking instruction and passing a test, or treating the e-bike like a car or a motorcycle. The problem is that most people do not know that. They are either ignorant of it or they deliberately do not care, and they can buy these illegal bikes in lots of legal shops in the UK. It seems bizarre that we are allowing people to buy these bikes—many are not bikes; they could be boards or all sorts of contraptions—and they then think they are able to use them. Most people do not check up on the highway code or the law; they just get on and use them. They are deeply dangerous to themselves, but also to other road users. I would press the Government to look at this again in the other place—it is too late to do it here—to see whether there is some way in which selling these things to people without proper licences could be made illegal.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Political Prisoners · Hansard source

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  I make this intervention with your indulgence, Mr Western, because I am engaged in another debate in the main Chamber, and I apologise to the hon. Lady because my intervention deals with another individual, although I fully support her and congratulate her on raising the Jimmy Lai case, which I have argued many times. I hope she makes her case, and I am sure she will—it is a terrible thing. However, there are other cases, and the person I want to mention, who is often forgotten, is Ryan Cornelius. He has been incarcerated for 17 years in the United Arab Emirates. The UN has said exactly the same: this is an illegal incarceration for which there is no legal basis. He has often been in solitary confinement. The British Government—not this one, necessarily, but all Governments—have too often failed to raise his case in the way they should. I mention the case because the Foreign Office needs to do its duty in raising it, regardless of the business deals that it wants to make.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Chinese Embassy Development · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the United States Government’s national security concerns regarding the proposed Chinese embassy development at Royal Mint Court.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Chinese Embassy Development · Hansard source

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  The US Government, and today the Dutch Parliament, have expressed concerns about sensitive cables under Royal Mint Court. Beijing has a recent history of cutting cables and confirmed infrastructure hacks, including embedding malware capable of disabling all that infrastructure. Surprisingly, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology said on television yesterday that this issue is “in the planning process” and could be managed. Will the Minister correct the record? The planning inquiry has concluded, and no changes at all can be made to the Chinese planning application. I remind the Minister that the application contains nothing about cabling. Indeed, the Chinese have rejected only two requests by the inquiry—requests to which he referred; they were made by the Government, in the letter from the Foreign and Home Secretaries. That is despite Ministers regularly saying that the letter should “give those concerned comfort.” Rerouting the cables would, we know, cost millions, if the Government are even thinking about that, so I ask the Minister: why did the Government strongly deny, rather than tell this House about, the presence of the cables until the White House actually confirmed it? Chinese state media have reported that the UK has given assurances to the Chinese that the UK would allow the development, no matter what. Indeed, The Guardian newspaper reported in 2023 that the Chinese would not apply again unless they were given governmental assurances. Can the Minister confirm, or even deny, any of this? Speaking as one of those in the Chamber who have been sanctioned by China, I see this as Project Kowtow. There has been one denial after another, and one betrayal after another. No wonder our allies believe that this Chinese mega-embassy is becoming a walk of shame for the Government.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The politics of U-turns are not always bad; this is a welcome U-turn by the Government as people will benefit. It would have been helpful for the Minister to have said, “We made a mistake, but we are going to put it right”, but that is by the by. However, I have had many letters and communications, as I am sure have many other hon. Members from across the House, about a group of people who are still suffering: something like 750,000 pensioners who are eligible for pension credit, and therefore theoretically for the winter fuel payment, applied for the winter fuel payment but have not received a single penny for last winter. Whatever other changes are made, will the Minister commit to putting that situation right, so that those pensioners will receive the money that they should have had during the winter?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  Thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker—that has given me a few more minutes. The ARAP scheme was introduced to provide a lifesaving path to safety for Afghan nationals who directly supported the UK’s mission in Afghanistan. At its core, it is a moral and strategic obligation. These individuals risked their lives working for UK forces, and I believe the UK must duly protect them. The Government were right at the time to introduce the scheme, and it is important to acknowledge that it has achieved something. However, in practice, I believe the scheme has fallen dramatically short both morally and logistically. Many eligible Afghans are still stranded under Taliban rule and fearing for their lives, which highlights the failures in the scheme’s execution.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  I agree with those words the Secretary of State for Defence said previously. I hope he was speaking to highlight problems with the Government, as those in opposition must do; I am afraid that my Government did not resolve that issue. At the end of my speech, as the Minister will know, I will pitch to him how things should be different. The bureaucracy of the scheme is astonishing. Thousands of applications remain unresolved, some of which were submitted as far back as 2021. Many of these people have had to flee and hide with their families, because they risk death—I will come back to a particular case that highlights all that. The long lack of transparency and the long delays have left these individuals in personal and collective danger. The scheme has narrow and inconsistent eligibility criteria. Individuals who have served alongside UK forces have been excluded due to narrow definitions and specific eligibility categories that rule them out. Others have been denied protection because they were employed by subcontractors rather than the Ministry of Defence, yet they carried out the same vital work and faced the same risks as others who were directly employed. Then there are the broken promises. The UK Government assured those who served with the British forces that they would not be left behind, yet lives are still at risk. First-hand reports from Afghanistan show that former allies are now being targeted by the Taliban. I did not serve in Afghanistan—I did serve in the British military, a fact of which I was proud—but there are some in this Chamber today who did serve there and who know from first-hand experience what was going on. Throughout all of this, as I lay out the individual case, there is a very simple theme: we must stand by those who stood by us, because if we do not, we are not worthy of being British or of the freedoms we uphold and fight for. Those who stood by us fought for those freedoms, too; they supported us in those fights, and we cannot abandon them, given the threats they now face. The fact that they are in hiding, fearful for their lives, is an absolute travesty, and the idea that we could have forgotten them should be a badge of shame for any British Government and for the British establishment.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to rise to move this Adjournment debate about applications to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, which has come to be known as the ARAP scheme. I intend to raise a deeply troubling case that highlights serious and systemic failings in the operation of ARAP. Those failings have very real and potentially fatal consequences for real human beings who served us, and who are now in fear of their lives. Importantly, I will ask the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), to reconsider the whole process. The individual to whom I am about to refer played a crucial role in saving British lives during our operations in Afghanistan. He supported our troops and our mission, often at immense personal risk to him and his family, yet it seems that he has been abandoned by us. When we consider that we have given so much to Afghanistan—building a new Government, a new freedom and some democracy—I think the west running away from Afghanistan is an act that shames us all deeply, as is the fact that those who served us and clearly put their lives at risk have been brushed aside. It does not matter who is in power or which Government it is: I say simply that that is—

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  It is powerful that my hon. and gallant Friend is here today to support this debate, given his service in Afghanistan. He will understand more than most the threats that were received by these people and how their lives would have been more difficult. He will also know that many would have lost their lives had this sort of intelligence and support not been available from these brave individuals. I am grateful for his intervention. Despite the overwhelming evidence presented—there was much of it—the application was rejected on all counts and the individual remains at risk. What we got back in the papers that I looked through, which came first to the Minister and then to me, was this: “the decision maker was unable to satisfy themselves from the evidence provided or that held by the UK Government that his role with National Directorate of Security…was closely supporting or in partnership with a UK Government Department”. Is that really the best we can do—some bureaucrat stuck away somewhere who does not care, who is not even in the Ministry of Defence and who has no real understanding of what it is like to put one’s life on the line for other people’s safety? All of that evidence is dismissed in the line “unable to satisfy themselves from the evidence provided”. I find that astonishing and appalling. I say that not to attack civil servants—many of them are brilliant and do a lot of work—but this process allows someone to make a decision about the life and death of a brave individual without even thinking about the consequences. This is not just about a bureaucratic error. As I said, the situation is very human; it is literally life and death. We are making a decision today under this scheme to have this individual die. That is pretty much what they are saying. He is a man in hiding, in fear of his life and the lives of his family. I understand that even his closest relation has been arrested and has probably been tortured to find out where he is. We dismiss it with the words that those processing his application were “unable to satisfy themselves”. By the very nature of the daily intelligence that this individual was required to share, there is a threat to his life and to his family. He has placed himself between us and the Taliban. Records of these meetings were kept and widely publicised, including in public relations-focused photographs showing the individual at meetings attended by the general. This evidence was recorded in Afghan Government systems and in offices now commandeered by the Taliban, who now know what he was doing. It is still easily searchable on the internet today, yet the decision maker was “unable to satisfy themselves from the evidence provided” that he was closely supporting or in partnership with the UK. Really?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  I hope I can give my right hon. Friend time to get to the Benches behind him, as he may wish to intervene on me. I am sure that he will not be noticed in that movement, swift and ghost-like as he. I am not going to stretch this out any longer. The individual I will refer to today worked alongside British forces in Afghanistan, providing operational and intelligence support under direct threat from the Taliban. His family and his home were threatened. He served in the national security directorate in Kabul. His work involved sharing critical intelligence with the British special forces and intelligence services in Kabul and, of course, in the wider region. That intelligence undoubtedly saved lives and contributed to the success of key operations. His contributions are simply not in doubt or in question; they are evidenced extensively, including in a powerful testimony from the most senior commander of British forces in Kabul at the time, who is now a general. He personally worked with this individual and has testified to the crucial role he played. I am not going to name the general at this point, but he says in his letter in support of this individual’s application: “His daily security briefings covered possible threats and intelligence reports. These reports made a substantive and crucially life-saving contribution not only to the UK’s military and national security objectives with respect to operations in Afghanistan, but also to the day-to-day safety of British troops and civilian British Embassy staff” and others. He also says that by the very nature of the daily intelligence that this individual was required to share within this high-level forum, the threat to his life and that of his family was unquestionably at an elevated risk from targeted attacks, including a high risk of death or serious injury by the Taliban regime. I would have thought that that alone was powerful enough evidence to say that this individual should be here now, as he is currently in fear for his life in another country nearby.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  Indeed, we are. We are elected—that is what makes us different—to this Chamber to take that on and to change it. We are not bound by a bureaucratic process. We have the power here to change anything, and I simply ask: why not do that, when human lives and those who served us are at risk? We must recognise and remember that we are not bureaucrats—we are politicians, and we must feel the pain of others and understand when we need to change. I was concerned that my own Government did not make that change before and, in a way, I am begging the Government to see it differently and to try to do something about it. More and more ex-military and ex-security forces people are being targeted in Afghanistan. We know that; it is a fact. Executions are taking place all the time, but because we are not there and it is not on the television every day, we put it to one side. We forget that dead British servicemen were clapped through the towns because people recognised their bravery in being out there to help people and to support those who did not want that tyranny back in their country. We supported those servicemen, and we feel strongly for their bravery; why do we not feel the same for those who helped them and who helped many others to stay alive? Surely they are just as valuable to us as any British soldier who was saved by them. That is the cost, and that is the equation. I simply say to the Minister that according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan’s quarterly human rights update, the Taliban detained at least 23 former Government officials and members of the Afghan national security forces during this period. At least five were subjected to torture or other forms of ill treatment. Many of the arrests took place in Panjshir and Kabul, and were reportedly tied to alleged links to the National Resistance Front. As I said earlier, I do not believe that this individual case is isolated. It exposes deep systematic failures in the ARAP scheme. The excessive bureaucracy and eligibility criteria are remarkable. The system as it stands is clearly ill equipped to deal with exceptional cases—there are many—such as this one. Most importantly, it fails to offer the necessary protection to those who are now at risk because of their loyalty to the UK and the British forces. As I said earlier, I know there are colleagues on both sides of the House who behave bravely and serve their country, including the Minister’s colleague who sits on the Front Bench. I will finish my comments with this. Surely we must now change the scheme. We must be generous to those whose generosity with their lives has kept so many British lives safe. I know the restrictions of being at the Dispatch Box, and I know that civil servants will have said to the Minister, “Be very careful. You don’t want to step across this one, and you mustn’t make a pledge that we can’t consider. Don’t let that man put your career in danger.” I think putting our careers in danger is nothing compared with the actions of those who put their lives in danger for us. I simply ask the Minister to pledge that he will do his utmost, that he will speak to the powers that be, and that he will bang on the door of No. 10 and demand that the Prime Minister take on this case and others personally. While we build up our armed forces, and look to have allies and people who will work with us, they will look back at how we treated those who came before and they will ask themselves, “Why do I serve with people who forget you when the deed is done?” I say to the Minister: let us not forget them. They are as brave and as important to us as the soldiers who were directly employed by us, who served us and who made sure that many were saved as a result.