Debate on the Address

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who makes a significant contribution whenever he speaks. I seldom agree with him, but it is important to have parliamentarians like him in the House. He gave an excellent and comprehensive speech, even though I did not agree with much of the content. It is traditional at the start of debate on the Queen's Speech to pay tribute to Members who passed away in the previous year, as well as to talk a little about our armed forces. I would like to break only slightly with that tradition by paying tribute to two local councillors in my area who passed away during the last year. Peggie Harrison passed away in the last few weeks. She was an excellent leader of education on Telford and Wrekin council. She did a great deal to modernise education in the area and was well respected right across the political spectrum. She is a great loss to our community. Councillor Jim Hicks also died a few weeks ago. Jim was a man who served on the county council and the West Mercia police authority. He made a very significant contribution to public life in Telford. I am very sad that we have lost both those councillors. I also pay tribute to our armed forces. A few weeks ago, I visited a family living in Aqueduct in my constituency. They were supported by an organisation that had provided a dog to help one of their children with hearing and other problems. When I visited the family, I saw a terrible situation. The child had been knocked over and terribly injured on the road. As I talked to the family, I found out that the other son was serving in Iraq. The family has faced enormous pressure over recent months, thinking about their son and having to cope with caring for another family member as well. I want to pay tribute to every serviceman and woman in the Telford area who is serving our country in Iraq or Afghanistan. I have to say that I did not vote in favour of the Iraq war, but I believe that our service personnel are doing an outstanding job out there and that we now have to stay the course. We cannot set an arbitrary date for withdrawal. We need to ensure that there is stability in the country before we withdraw: pulling out on a single arbitrary date would be wrong; we have to see the job through.