Discipline Acts

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:03 am on 3 July 1984.

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Photo of John Stanley John Stanley Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces) 1:03, 3 July 1984

I wish to reply to the points made in the debate, to which the hon. Gentleman did not contribute.

The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) said that he would vote against the order. He based his decision on a view of the armed forces which—having seen much of the armed forces myself in the past year—I found it impossible to recognise. According to the hon. Gentleman, the lads and lasses, as he terms them, of the armed forces are insular and class-ridden and a hotbed of Socialist discontent. The sharing of hardship, danger and sacrifice in the Falklands war give the lie to that view of the armed services.