UK Parliament / Open data

Armed Forces Bill

Proceeding contribution from Earl Attlee (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Thursday, 3 March 2016. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Armed Forces Bill.

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I am not surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, had a go at me. I went part of the way: I said that we could have women in the Royal Armoured Corps because there is no logic for why a woman should not be able to operate a tank or an armoured fighting vehicle. In fact, there is a possibility that women may be better in certain roles.

The noble Lord, Lord West, was very cruel to me because he took away one of my killer questions to the Minister, which is: if we were in general war and had to conscript people, would we be happy to conscript women into the infantry? I do not think the Minister needs to answer that because it is far too tough a question.

I would like an assurance from the Minister that he will not authorise the fitness and strength standards in the infantry to be lowered. Can we have an assurance that that will not happen? If there are one or two superhuman women who can do it, fine. But as soon as we lower those training and fitness standards, we will have reduced the combat effectiveness of the infantry.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

769 cc187-8GC 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords Grand Committee
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