Armed Forces Bill

I am well aware of that and I have to pay tribute to people such as the hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster), who serves on the Defence Select Committee and who has been in Afghanistan over the summer. I am sorry, but I will not accept this nonsense that, because people have not got military experience, they are somehow inferior to those who have served in our armed forces. To say that is not to criticise those Opposition Members—or anyone else in this House—who have served in Her Majesty’s armed forces. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who has campaigned tenaciously for this amendment; it is a great tribute to his persistence. I also want to pay tribute to John Hipkin, who was a constituent of mine when I was a city councillor in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and who has fought for many years for the pardon that the House will hopefully agree to tonight. John, a cabin boy, was the youngest prisoner of war during the second world war, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock reminded me, he featured in a documentary last year that showed the pressures he experienced serving his country as a teenager. The amendment will not solve every single problem, and if we are looking for perfection we will not find it there, but it will enable a line to be drawn under these events. Lance Corporal Peter Goggins, of South Moor, Stanley—he is the uncle of a constituent of mine, Marina Brewis, who also lives in Stanley—was shot at dawn in 1917. He and his comrades, who were part of the 19th Durham Light Infantry, were guarding their positions on the western front. They were retreated when a senior officer informed them that an ambush was taking place that was advancing from the German lines. That proved to be unfounded, and Corporal Goggins was tried on Christmas Eve 1916 and executed in January 1917. Private Albert Rochester witnessed the execution. His diaries state:"““A motor ambulance arrives carrying the doomed men. Manacled and blindfolded, they are helped out and tied up to the stakes. Over each man’s heart is placed an envelope. At the sign of command, the firing parties, 12 for each, align their rifles on the envelopes. The officer in charge holds his stick aloft and, as it falls, 36 bullets usher the souls of three of Kitchener’s men to the great unknown.””" The military chaplain present said of the three men executed that morning:"““Braver men I have never met.””" This amendment will lift the stain on the Brewis family. When Mrs. Brewis, who is now 71, heard of the amendment, she said that it was ““wonderful news””, and that although she would be ““sceptical”” until Parliament passed it, she and the other families who have been campaigning for a pardon for many years would be delighted to see it. This has not been an easy decision for Ministers and others to reach, but it will lift the stigma and the sense of shame that a lot of such families have experienced. We must also remember the hardship that they went through, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock explained earlier. I accept that there are Opposition Members who do not agree with the amendment, and if they feel very strongly that they cannot support it, they should divide the House and ensure that we put on the record who supported the amendment and who did not.