Gideon Amos MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Oct 2025 · Pride in Place · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister to her place. Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s commitment to invest in high streets and communities—making our local centres thrive is a cause that all of us across this House share. However, despite the strategy talking about empowerment and the Government previously announcing that they would simplify the system and consolidate grants, this strategy does the opposite by creating a patchwork of small ringfenced grants for certain areas with strict rules on how local authorities can spend their funding. However, what goes unsaid in the strategy is perhaps as important. The importance of community assets such as libraries and swimming pools is acknowledged in the strategy, as is the lamenting of their loss, but the strategy neglects to mention the deeper causes of those sell-offs. Local authorities face ever-growing crises in funding statutory services that they have to fund according to Government rules, particularly social care and provision for special educational needs and disabilities, and are forced to sell assets to keep those services going. In this year alone £1.3 billion of public assets have been sold off, nearly three times the amount of the annual funding announced today. In my constituency, and in Somerset as a whole, more than two thirds of council tax payments go towards the funding of care for children and adults. Last year the county succeeded in plugging a £55 million shortfall, but that feat will become harder to achieve each year. Pride in place will struggle to succeed unless the Government fix the care crisis. Council tax payers should not be bailing out the Government when it comes to their duty to provide a care and SEND system that works. Investment in the high streets is welcome, but is no substitute for giving local authorities the means to protect their services and assets into the future. Will the Minister tell us what plans the Government have to relieve the care funding crisis at local level, so that communities can keep and maintain the services and assets that they value most?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Social and Affordable Housing · Hansard source

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  In 2007, Ming Campbell launched the Liberal Democrats’ campaign for not just affordable but decent homes for our military. I congratulate the Secretary of State on his position. Will he join me in congratulating the forces families who backed my amendment to provide them with a decent homes standard, and will he agree that they deserve nothing less?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Bovine Tuberculosis Control and Badger Culling · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a helpful speech that benefits from his huge amount of experience. I congratulate the 229 people from my constituency who signed the petition. On the basis of team science, does my hon. Friend agree with Keith Cutler, a constituent of mine who is a past president of the British Cattle Veterinary Association, who has pointed out in academic papers that the DEFRA testing is really not up to standard and that a far better testing regime is needed? With better testing, there could be better monitoring and better control, preventing the cattle-to-cattle transmission, which, as we have heard, accounts for the greatest proportion.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Bovine Tuberculosis Control and Badger Culling · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We have been debating today badger culling to control TB, and I believe that badger culling should be phased out as quickly as possible, but the Planning and Infrastructure Bill provides for the killing of badgers not to control TB—not for public health purposes—but for general public purposes. I ask the Government to look again at why that is justified. Why do we need additional legislation to kill badgers?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Bovine Tuberculosis Control and Badger Culling · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  We need more prisons and prison places, but I find the Conservative case absolutely incoherent. They talk about being tough on crime, but they closed police stations, closed courts, cut the number of police officers and completely failed to deliver the number of prison places that they speak about—talking tough without delivering the goods. Frankly, that does not work and the country has had enough of it. We need to move on. I recognise, however, that courts need to make greater use of community sentences. Courts need to be agile, and they need tools that deal harshly with persistent offending. Community sentences can do that. Defaulting to prison every time, almost fetishising prison, cares nothing about the victims of petty criminals who are sent to prison for short stays, where they learn more about crime than they had ever learnt in their whole lives, and then come out and reoffend. We heard no concern from Conservative Members about the victims of reoffending. Why not? It is not convenient for their argument that prison is always the answer. Community sentences, demonstrating that people are paying back to their community and society, can be a tough sentence and the right sentence.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes a compelling point about the depths to which that kind of sentencing can go. The lack of concern from Conservative Members about reoffending after short-term prison stays is surprising, to say the least. Coming down hard on crime means we need to bring back proper community policing, quicker justice that halves the time between the offence and the sentence, and better and tougher supervision of community sentences, as set out in our Lib Dem manifesto. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) referred to our position on the Bill, which I wholeheartedly support, and he does a tremendous job. In my Taunton and Wellington constituency, I am working with local businesses and the police to try to stamp out shops that are trading illegally. Time and again, police and trading standards raid premises and find counterfeit cigarettes or unlicensed alcohol, with evidence of sales to under-age youngsters. However, I have spoken to the police about this, and they find that the only person they can put before the courts is the individual behind the counter—a fall guy for the shadowy layers of owners who lie behind the business. Conniving and cowardly fraudsters are basically employing and putting behind the counter vulnerable people who often have little grasp of the law and the regulations that apply. All criminal behaviour deserves to be punished, but sentencing the fall guy for up to 10 years in prison, as provided for in the Trade Marks Act 1994, does not effectively deal with the menace of dangerous goods being sold to our children. The convicted man or woman often deserves less blame than their employers, while those employers—the shadowy bosses—simply open a new business under a new name in the same shop and carry on trading illegally, with a different fall guy behind the counter. Back in 2008, research in the British Medical Journal found that “Smuggled tobacco kills four times more people than all illicit drugs combined”. In 2018, the Mesothelioma Center reported on a study of counterfeit cigarettes imported into Australia from China which showed alarming results: “Each cigarette is packed with up to 80 percent more nicotine and emits 130 percent more carbon monoxide. Worse still, many contain other impurities such as rat poison, traces of lead, dead flies, human and animal feces and asbestos.” It is a menace that we have to deal with. Why should those who are trading honestly—like my constituents who run shops, pubs and businesses, sustaining town centres and communities across Taunton and Wellington—and paying their taxes be forced to compete with criminal enterprises, for which it takes months and months to obtain a closure order under the current legal process? Is it not time to change the law to “one strike and you’re out” when it comes to shops trading in illegal substances? Why must it take months for such orders to be granted? Why can we not empower the police officers in my constituency, who are as frustrated as I am, to close down premises overnight? I hope that the Secretary of State will meet me to discuss that aspect of the legislation—I will explain that to him afterwards, if I have the chance, because I am not quite sure that he caught it. Being tough on this kind of crime should mean being swift with the punishment. That would put a stop to the behaviour immediately, and rightly send a shiver down the spine of any shop owner contemplating illegal sales. In conclusion, although better supervision is needed, tough new community sentences including tagging are welcome to deter repeat offending. That will not increase the reoffending in the way that prison often does. There is, though, a wider lesson: sentencing reform alone is not enough when the real culprits are able to hide in the shadows. We need to strengthen the powers of the police and councils not only to prosecute the individuals at the counter, but to close down the premises that police know are repeatedly flouting the law. If we do not, we risk punishing the least powerful while allowing the real fraudsters to keep raking in their gains, to keep harming our children, and to keep evading their taxes.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  I very much agree with my hon. Friend, who is a great champion of families in that position in his constituency. As the 122,000 signatures on today’s petition show, too many families are forced into crisis before help arrives. Many fear that the Government’s forthcoming reforms will make things even harder. To its credit, Somerset council recognises that the system is not working, and it is working hard to turn around the position. The super-tanker needs to be turned around. The council has invested in the provision of more than 20 new in-school SEND units, which are now coming forward across the county. It has increased the number of EHCPs by 46%, even though applications have risen by 26%, and it has begun to see some reductions in complaints and tribunal cases. Our councillors and I continue to challenge the team to do a lot better. These are only the early signs of improvement. It has to go further: that improvement has to be sustained. The system is not good enough, and it is failing our families. Government funding has to be part of the change, but families in Taunton and Wellington and elsewhere are worried that that change will threaten the future of children’s education. Their right to assessment and support must be maintained and there must be enhanced investment in both special provision and mainstream special educational needs provision.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and a privilege to speak on behalf of the 204 people in the Taunton and Wellington constituency who signed the petition and all the other families who are deeply concerned. It is not abstract for me, because of the support my wife gives to many families who have children with special needs, including in our own home. From my experiences with my own children and from my surgeries, I know the regular trials, the pain and the often extreme debilitating stress that families go through trying to get a basic, decent education for their children. Parents are driven to the very edge by a system that they have had to battle through every step of the way. It should not be like this. Let me tell the House about Luke, a bright, motivated young man. Luke loves school and has high hopes for his career, but he needs help to get there. His parents now have to provide two-to-one transport support just to get him to and from school. Juggling in that way has resulted in Luke being more dangerous, lashing out on transport while travelling. His parents are working, paying taxes and, in short, doing everything that society asks of them, as well as caring for Luke with extraordinary dedication all the time when he is not at school, but how are they supposed to work and hold down full-time jobs while being denied the transport that they need for Luke? Every day that his education, health and care plan fails to be delivered takes him a step closer to full residential care, at hugely greater human and financial cost to everyone involved.

• 10 Sept 2025 · Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Access · Hansard source

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  The Minister knows from when I wrote to him that what distinguished the shooting up and ransacking of the Action around Bethlehem Children with Disability charity by the Israeli army was the fact that it is a British charity. Will he pursue compensation from the Israeli Government for that British charity for the destruction of the children’s centre in Palestine, as was raised by my constituents in North Curry?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Free-to-air Broadcasting: Cricket Participation · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. On the T20, will he take a moment to congratulate Somerset county cricket club for reaching the finals—I heard the cheering from my garden at the weekend—and will he recognise that county cricket needs all the support it can get?

• 8 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. I congratulate the hon. Members for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), and for North East Derbyshire (Louise Sandher-Jones), on their new ministerial positions. My constituent, former senior aircraftsman Mark Shephard, was subjected to discriminatory dismissal from the RAF, denying him his whole future career in the RAF. Could the Minister explain why he has been accepted for an impact payment, but denied a discharge and dismissal payment, with no explanation? Will the Minister review the whole DDP, so that it honours—

• 8 Sept 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Indeed, our military deserve no less than this being on the face of the Bill, in whichever way the Government wish to do it. If it is so easy and, as my hon. Friend points out, it is the Government’s position, surely it can hold no fear for them. It would be disappointing not to have those amendments. We are told that 90% of service accommodation meets the decent homes standard—my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) had clearly already read this part of my speech—but those figures come from contractors who are responsible for managing those properties and have an interest in saying that they already meet the standards. There is no independent assessment. The Defence Committee painted a very different picture, when families reported to it. The Committee stated: “It is disingenuous for DIO to present glossy brochures about being ‘decent homes plus’ when they are anything but. It is clear that the DIO’s property frequently does not meet the standards.” Crucially, it added: “Moreover, there is no local authority”— or anyone else— “to hold them to account as would be the case for private and other local landlords.” We are also told that it would be impractical to extend the decent homes standard to military housing because of access “behind the wire”, yet former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Stirrup, reminded colleagues in the other place that civilian officials already go into far more sensitive areas of military bases, so that is not a serious objection.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Any opportunity to give our service people decent homes, beginning with England, should be taken. I am surprised that the Minister has not grasped it with both hands. The Minister and the Government are in the position, with a large majority, to legislate for this in whichever way they choose, but it needs to be on the face of the legislation. That is what our military deserve. Warm words about things improving are not enough; we have heard them before. My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire gained a categoric assurance from the last Government’s Housing Minister at the Dispatch Box that that Government would legislate. They did not.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome any report that will deal with this issue, but the fact is that unless the Government accept an amendment or table their own amendment to provide this protection for service families in primary legislation, our service people will be the only category of renters who are not guaranteed the decent homes standard in primary legislation. Private renters will be, social renters will be, but our military service families will not be. That cannot be right. The balance is wrong and the Government need to do more; they need to legislate. The Government’s final objection is that they want to do it differently. So be it. I will wait with bated breath, as I am sure the whole House will, for the Government’s amendment giving servicemen and servicewomen the gold standard they deserve. Since the Government have tabled no amendment of their own, however, we shall continue to press ours, both here and in the other place. Our armed forces should not be the only group in Britain excluded from the right to a decent home in legislative terms. That is what Lords amendment 39 delivers, and it must stand part of the Bill. This Bill is about a vision for better homes and for dignity, security and fairness for renters. That must include the families of our armed forces, such as those of the 40 Commando Royal Marines in Norton Fitzwarren and elsewhere in Taunton. I was proud to start a petition to save Norton Manor camp following its proposed closure by the previous Conservative Government. That commitment must sit alongside our national mission to build more social and council homes—150,000 per year—to restore hope for a whole generation. That is what Liberal Democrats are fighting for, and that is the change the country desperately needs.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for his engagement in the issue of service family accommodation. Will he consider bringing forward primary legislation, on the face of this Bill or another Bill, so that service families are given the same legislative protection that private and social tenants are given?

• 8 Sept 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I do agree with my hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to the sterling work he does in Torbay, and has done in the past as leader of the council, on these issues. That change in the burden of proof may sound technical, but in fact it would gut the powers of local authorities to hold bad landlords to account, as my hon. Friend has just said. At a stroke, it would make justice for tenants far harder to achieve. Lords amendment 53 points in the same wrong direction. It seeks to introduce fixed-term tenancies, but the whole point of the Bill is to shift to periodic tenancies—arrangements that give renters both flexibility and more security. Dragging us back to fixed terms, which would become standard across that particular element of student housing, would undermine those core principles. On the other hand, there are amendments that make the Bill fairer and more workable, which we support. Lords amendment 19 recognises the reality faced by shared ownership leaseholders, who can be can be, and are, hit disproportionately hard when sales fall through, through no fault of their own. Without that exemption, they could face financial ruin. This is a simple matter of justice and we support it. Lords amendment 64, which would create a new possession ground where a landlord needs to house a carer, is in keeping with the Liberal Democrats’ belief in the importance of supporting the millions of carers out there who are so often overlooked. It is right that the law should recognise the vital role they play, and if there are risks of abuse, it is open to the Government to table their own amendments to set out how they would make the same provision for accommodation needed by carers. Lords amendment 39, which would legislate for a decent home standard for our military, goes to the heart of who we are as a society and our obligations to those who serve. I pushed for this amendment at earlier stages in the Commons, and indeed this has long been the Liberal Democrats’ position, having been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) in the previous Parliament. It is therefore disappointing that, while the Government have come forward with their own amendments on other matters, they have not come up with any such amendments on decent homes for our military, although that has been agreed across the parties in the other place.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome the moves to which the hon. Gentleman refers, including the insourcing, but the responsibility for determining whether the homes meet the “decent homes plus” standard is down to contractors, who have a commercial interest in reporting that. The difference with the decent homes standard generally is that it is subject to independent inspection. That is a crucial difference. Surely there should be a robust and accountable regime set out in primary legislation to ensure that that investment continues and those standards are reached. That is the least that our service people should be able to expect. As I was saying, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire was given categoric assurances that the Government would legislate in this regard, but they did not and neither have this Government. Lord Stirrup, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, reminded the Lords, speaking from experience, that this is not a new problem but one that Governments had failed to tackle for decades. He said: “For decades now, I have seen at close hand the deficiencies in service families’ accommodation…For years, I have listened to successive Governments undertake to get to grips with the issue. For decades, I have seen them fail to do so…So why should I, or anybody who comes after me, put any faith in any Government’s promises that are not backed up by enforceable measures?” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 15 July 2025; Vol. 847, c. 1759.] That is the nub of the issue. Service families have heard promises for decades. Now, surely, is the time for action. Our military deserve the gold standard, and that means they deserve legislative provision for decent homes, however the Government wish to do it.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for presenting the Government’s position on the Lords amendments, as indeed he presented their position on the 92 amendments we tabled in Committee. I only regret that, in doing so, he rejected all 92 of them. I was going to congratulate the Secretary of State on his new position, but he has escaped just in time. I will come to our amendments—the other place took a different view on some of them—but I will first declare my interest in a registered provider of social housing. A generation have been cut off from the dream of home ownership. After half a century of flogging off council houses—over 4.5 million have been sold off since 1980 by successive Conservative Governments—there are now, in effect, none left for the thousands of families who now need them. That is why the Liberal Democrats have a vision to restore hope to millions who aspire to a decent home by building our target of 150,000 social and council rent homes per year, backed up with a commitment of an extra £6 billion on top of the affordable housing programme budget, funded by fairly reforming capital gains tax so that more people benefit from relief but those who make bigger gains pay more. Alongside that, the Liberal Democrats want a new generation of rent-to-own homes so that people can get on to the ownership ladder. It is the biggest and most ambitious programme since council housing was invented by Lloyd George and Addison back at the beginning of the 20th century. We have also long campaigned for an end to no-fault evictions and for longer and more stable tenancies for tenants. The Government have put both those key measures in the Bill, and that is why we support it and want to see it enacted. Tenants have lived for far too long with insecurity and the fear that, if they speak up, they might lose their home. Some of the Lords amendments before us would improve the Bill, while others would weaken it. Lords amendment 11 would require tenants to pay pet deposits, which would pile on new financial burdens, putting the right to own pets out of reach for those already struggling. It is not in the spirit of the Bill, so we cannot support it. Similarly, Lords amendment 18 would cut the prohibition on re-letting unsold properties from 12 months to six. That might sound like a neat compromise, but in practice it would give cover to any rogue landlord looking for an excuse to evict. A six-month ban would be far too short to give tenants the protection from abuse that they deserve. Lords amendment 26 seeks to raise the bar for enforcement by moving the burden of proof from civil to criminal.

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  The pubs, restaurants, cafés and hotels in our hospitality sector are not just places to eat and drink; they are the heart of our communities. They provide jobs, keep our high streets alive and make our communities better and stronger, but many of them tell me that they feel abandoned as a result of the Government policies that we are discussing. Across the country, an average of 30 pubs close their doors every week. In Taunton and Wellington, Shane Fisher, who runs the lovely Allerford Inn at Norton Fitzwarren, has recently taken on the Racehorse Inn in Taunton town centre. He describes policy effects that are simply unsustainable. The business rates that he pays are now greater than his lease—than the cost of the building. Business rates at that level simply cannot be right. The Castle hotel in Taunton, an iconic landmark that has been a hotel since 1786 and has famously been run by the Chapman family since 1950, faces similar challenges. In 2024-25, it paid £21,000 in business rates; the very next year, it is being asked to pay well over double: £52,000. That is an increase of £30,000. When that is combined with the damaging increase in national insurance last year and other cost increases, upwards of £200,000 has been added to its costs in a single year. The Little Wine Shop in Taunton’s great independent quarter told me that this kind of increase in costs, coupled with VAT, is killing the industry. I hope the Minister agrees that these increases are simply unsustainable for small family businesses. As a result, all these kinds of businesses are in survival mode. Hospitality businesses need support, not just through fair taxes, but by seeing the benefit of their taxes being invested in public services, such as policing. That is why I am delighted that our Liberal Democrat town council in Taunton is introducing street marshals, who will provide reassurance, safety and support to people in the town centre. I welcome the Government’s 10 extra police officers in Taunton and west Somerset. We have campaigned to restore proper community policing, which reassures people. Visible patrols are essential for the confidence of traders and customers alike. Too often, Government treat policing purely as a cost, and fail to see its economic benefits. Lifting town centre businesses by providing safe environments that attract customers is hugely valuable. Nowhere is that more true than for hospitality, and I encourage the Government to go further on that. The Government’s business rates hit hardest the bricks-and-mortar businesses that make up our town centres. On top of that, there is the rise in national insurance, which is nothing more than a tax on jobs. The burden falls most heavily on businesses and sectors like hospitality, which have a large proportion of part-time workers.

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and look forward to visiting them with him when I am next in his constituency. Hospitality is not asking for special treatment. Rather, it is asking for fairness, a level playing field and the chance to compete, invest and thrive without being penalised by the tax system. That is why Liberal Democrats have long called for business rates to be scrapped and replaced with a fairer system, one that shifts the burden from the tenants to the landowners, and it is why we opposed the rise in national insurance contributions, which squeezes small firms and workers alike. The Government need to listen to the hoteliers, publicans and restaurateurs in towns such as Taunton and Wellington, because unless things change, more doors will close, more jobs will go, and communities across the country will be poorer for it.

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that the Conservatives have some nerve talking about top-down reorganisation when, against people’s wishes—as expressed in a poll—they imposed an unwanted and unpopular unitary council on the whole of Somerset? Does she also agree that the Bill should introduce fair votes, in this place and in councils across the country, to restore faith in democracy and politics?

• 22 Jul 2025 · Birmingham Bin Strikes · Hansard source

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  Birmingham wants its refuse and recycling service back as quickly as possible to end the risks to public health and the environment, especially in the most densely populated parts of the city. The Liberal Democrats pay tribute to the volunteers and emergency services, who were out there cleaning up the city by dealing with refuse, waste pile-ups and fly-tipping while the council and unions could not agree and continued clashing hammer and tongs. For years under the previous Conservative Government, councils were expected to do more and more with less and less, and that has borne fruit in Birmingham and many other places. The Government must now grasp the nettle and tackle that funding crisis, particularly in social care and local government generally, so that what is happening in Birmingham does not spread across the country. Given that one-off clean-ups have cost the council £3.9 million already, is it not time for the Government to fund a complete clean-up of the remaining refuse so that residents do not have to foot the bill and spend the rest of the summer living alongside disgusting rubbish. Will any clean-up ensure that waste is properly dealt with and recycled where possible, given that the city is already ranked third from bottom in waste recycling?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Extending the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme · Hansard source

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  I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to share his sympathies for Julia in my constituency, who no longer has her flat or any accommodation back in Ukraine. She has secured a job with a legal firm that wishes to train her up and get her qualified, but she now finds that she may no longer be secure and safe in this country.

• 21 Jul 2025 · Victory over Japan: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I rise quite simply to honour all those who served in the Pacific campaign and in Asia during world war two. That included my own father—a very young Captain Amos at the time—who served at the end of the second world war after being redeployed from Europe. We also remember those who died on all sides, including thousands of civilians, and how strongly those events at the end of the second world war send the message that war is what happens when politics and diplomacy fail. Let us never forget that, along with the terrible consequences for those living with war right now. Others who served in the Pacific campaign include many unsung heroes of the RAF’s photographic reconnaissance unit—I congratulate the hon. Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) on securing a recent Westminster Hall debate on that—whose courage and skill gathered intelligence, shortened conflicts and saved lives. That intelligence was as vital in the eastern theatre as it was in the western European theatre. I will take a moment to acknowledge those from my constituency who served in the PRU, whose bravery was as extraordinary as their sacrifice. Flying Officer Eric Durston from Wellington flew solo reconnaissance missions, capturing images critical to allied planning. He was lost over the Netherlands in 1942. His gravestone at Bergen bears the inscription: “He died and never knew; England, he died for you.” It is signed simply, “Mother”—a mother whose heartache at the loss of her son at only 22 I can only imagine. On Christmas eve 1944, Flying Officer Priddle from Taunton died when his Spitfire was shot down over Utrecht. More happily, Eric Hill—also of Taunton—flew Mosquitos across the Arctic, on the eastern front and over Germany on dangerous missions. One such mission—to photograph Tirpitz—was over 3,000 miles long and lasted more than 10 hours. It is thought to be the longest reconnaissance operation of the entire war. He survived and went on to fulfil the dream of playing, and later commentating on, cricket for Somerset. He is commemorated in the press box at the county ground a few hundred yards from my own home. Those stories remind us that everyday folk get caught up in war and do extraordinarily courageous things. We owe it to those who serve to stand with veterans, to remember them and their sacrifice. It was therefore a privilege last week to take part in the debate on our Northern Ireland veterans. No veteran should ever be subjected to double jeopardy and pursued for doing no more than their duty. I wish to bring to the Minister’s attention a veteran who desperately needs help— [ Interruption. ] I will write to the Minister about that veteran, who has only weeks to live.