Armed Forces Bill

It is indeed timely that in this week before 11 November we debate the amendment granting a pardon to 306 of our soldiers shot at dawn in the first world war. Each year, on 11 November, we stand as a nation in silence, mourning and remembrance for all those who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving our country during that bloody, awful war and the conflicts that followed. The people of these islands are a free people today thanks to our war dead. That is a debt we can never repay. We honour their memory and recognise them for the heroes that they are. They have earned the eternal gratitude of the British people. However, for others no glory is attached to their memory. They have been banished to the fringes of history, their lives forgotten except, perhaps, by their grieving families. They were branded as cowards and traitors, blindfolded and shot at dawn by their own side. Between 1914 and 1920, some 350 men from the United Kingdom, what is now Ireland and what is now the Commonwealth, were executed for capital offences. Seven were Welsh, the youngest of whom was 19. Of the 350, 306 were executed for the military offences of desertion or attempted desertion, cowardice, disobedience, leaving a post, sleeping at a post, casting away arms or striking a superior officer—all offences listed in the amendment. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, when he was Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, sought a way to pardon the 306 who were shot. As has been mentioned, he concluded that there should not be a pardon for some and not others, and he was right. When he became Secretary of State for Defence in 2005, and I was appointed Under-Secretary, it fell to me to examine the matter further, not least because of the case brought by the family of Private Harry Farr and the concerns expressed by Members of both Houses. I looked at four possible options and I concluded that the only feasible option was a legislative pardon. Before I left the MOD, and with the full support of my right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary, I set in train work to prepare for this legislation. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, who came into the job in May and immediately set about taking forward that legislative pardon, which is why we have the amendment today. My right hon. Friend has acted with courage and determination and he has taken a step that others may have been reluctant to take. I also join the appreciation on both sides of the House for my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who has been determined and persistent in ensuring that the matter did not go away but came regularly before the House. I also know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, received several representations on the issue and I know that he also welcomes the amendment. This decision is not an easy one for Parliament to take. I have met ex-servicemen who are totally opposed to the idea of a pardon, feeling that those who were shot at dawn had let down their comrades. Others take a contrary view and, with their vivid and often terrible memories of life in the trenches, believe that it is time to pardon the 306.