First World War Commemoration

Debate between Chris Bryant and Keith Simpson

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I first congratulate both Front Benchers on their moving and informative speeches? We are all the sons and daughters of history. I am conscious of the fact that 99 years ago today, on 7 November 1914, the old British Army with the Territorials was dying, literally, in the area of Ypres in Belgium. Both my grandfathers were there—both survived—one in the Royal Flying Corps and one who had volunteered in August 1914 because he could drive, and then found himself in the Army Service Corps. As an old man, he told me that he had not expected to be toting a rifle and bayonet with the infantry, but such was the desperation of the defence that they were needed.

My generation is the lucky generation. I know I do not look it, but I am 64, and I am of the generation that missed a major war. My grandfathers fought in the first world war, and my father and uncles fought in the second world war. I lived through the cold war. However, a younger generation—my son and his friends—might ask why we are commemorating the first world war when we should perhaps be commemorating the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, which had just as major an impact on history. I suggest that the reason is not least because of the scale of the suffering and involvement, but also because we have an empathy towards the people involved and we can understand them far more. A very literate group of men and women fought, and we have images of them. In addition, the war is still controversial today.

I have to declare an interest, as I have written books about the British Army and the first world war. Along with the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who is about to resume his place, I am a parliamentary commissioner on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I am also a member of the Prime Minister’s advisory board on commemorating the first world war, along with the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson). What I briefly wish to talk about relates to the fact that, along with Lord Wallace of Saltaire, I am the joint chairman of the parliamentary committee looking at commemorating the first world war.

Why should Parliament commemorate the first world war? It is because there is a political element, a commemorative element, a learning and knowledge element and a personal element. The political one is that to engage young people today, we need to get them to think about the fact that big political issues were being debated before and during the first world war. Let us be under no illusion: Britain was not a peaceful, pastoral, “Downton Abbey” kind of place in the spring of 1914. We were nearly faced with a civil war in Ireland, there were mass industrial disputes and there were major social problems of one kind or another. In some respects, the war prevented domestic violence on a large scale.

We also have to recognise that Parliament did count. Of course, the Prime Minister did not have to come to Parliament to get a vote in support of his declaring war, but he was conscious of taking the temperature. The legislation that Parliament passed during the first world war, some of it pre-dating the war, is still with us today. Examples of that include the setting up of the intelligence and security aspects of British government, and legislation on licensing. The debates on conscription broke the old Liberal party, and debates took place here on whether or not we should seek a negotiated peace. Those things are not just a walk down memory lane; if we face young people today with all that, they will understand the importance of it. That is one thing that the advisory committee is hoping to get Parliament, and, in particular, the Youth Parliament, involved with.

Secondly, let me deal with the commemorative aspects. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made the point that there was no badge here for one former MP who died—

[Chris Bryant]

Two.

[Mr Simpson]

I am sorry. I will make sure that the officials in Parliament take note of that.

That is an important aspect, because large numbers of MPs and peers, and their children, were killed or badly wounded in the first world war and we commemorate them. Let us remember that both Asquith and Bonar Law, the leaders of the two major parties, lost sons in the first world war. It was not an academic war for them. Large numbers of staff served in the first world war. One of the waiters in the House of Commons Dining Room was killed in action in 1917. The war came home literally to this place.

As for the question of learning and knowledge, it is important that we will provide, via websites and the internet, a lot of information about Parliament and the memorials in Parliament that will be available to the public. We will link that to the project on lives of people in the first world war that is being established by the Imperial War museum.

More than anything else, this all has a personal aspect. One thing that my noble Friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire has done in the House of Lords, which is something that we will do in the House of Commons, is to send a questionnaire to every peer and peeress asking what their families did during the first world war. He has received some fascinating replies. People had relatives who served not only in the British armed forces, as one might expect, or on the support side, but in the Commonwealth armed forces and the Indian army. He has received replies from people whose relatives fought on both sides: the father’s side of the family in the British Army, and the mother’s side in the Austro-Hungarian or German army. I would like to think that we would be able to get such information from colleagues in this place and from the staff, too. We would be able to put that into the public domain to contribute to the commemoration.

We must also consider the fact that we will not stop in 2018 with the commemoration of 1918. The first world war did not end there; its legacy continued. There were big debates in this House about how we were going to honour the dead. The establishment of the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1917 was controversial. Up until then, bodies had been brought home, so the decision to bury the dead where they had fallen was controversial. Political upheaval followed the end of the first world war. Ex-soldiers from Irish regiments became members of the IRA or, on the other side, of the auxiliary division of the Royal Irish Constabulary. There was a civil war there.

There was also the disillusionment that grew in the 1920s and 1930s, and the legacy of pacifism and appeasement that affected minorities in the Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties. It is difficult for us now to think that while Harold Macmillan, whom I remember meeting in 1978 as a very old but fully alert man, was the British Prime Minister in 1963, which is well within my lifetime, his most moving experience was serving in the first world war. He tended to judge men and women by how they had acted and behaved in that war.

I hope that what we are doing, with the help of Members, to get Parliament to consider how to commemorate the first world war will not only interest us, but involve the wider public and young people, which is one of our greatest aims. I suspect that all those men and women who were lucky enough to survive the war and live on would approve of what we are trying to do and of the fact that we are going to consider the matter in a non-prescriptive way. Instead, to use that old expression, we will let a thousand flowers bloom and have a proper debate.