Commonwealth Medals

Part of Armed Forces Bill (Programme) (No. 3) – in the House of Commons at 7:30 pm on 19 October 2011.

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Photo of Stephen Gilbert Stephen Gilbert Liberal Democrat, St Austell and Newquay 7:30, 19 October 2011

Before addressing Lords amendment 6, I wish to join colleagues in paying tribute to the men and women of our armed forces, wherever they serve, and expressing gratitude for their hard work, bravery and courage.

I agree with the Minister. The Liberal Democrats will be disagreeing with our friends in another place on this matter. We need a full and thorough review of all the issues associated with the awarding of Commonwealth medals. It is pernicious for the Opposition to pick one medal and try to make political capital out of it, rather than looking at the matter overall. However, I say to the Minister that this will be the second review that the coalition Government have had on the awarding of medals. It is important that this time we learn from the failure of the previous review to secure cross-party support and get it right for the long term. The terms of reference and the timeline for the last review were not made public and it failed to consult interested stakeholder groups, including the veterans to whom the medals are awarded. I ask him to give an assurance that those three concerns will be resolved in the new review.