Chris Vince

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for bringing this important debate to the House. Equally, it would be remiss of me not to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) for her passionate speech, or the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who gave a powerful and interesting speech about his father’s experiences in the second world war. I thank him for bringing that to the House today. I wish to commemorate the battle of Britain, one of the defining moments in our nation’s history, but also to champion the extraordinary contribution of my local community in Essex. While the courage of the Royal Air Force pilots is rightly celebrated across the country, we must not forget that the defence of Britain was not won by pilots alone; it was secured by towns and villages, by the people who built, maintained and sustained the airfields, roads and communications, and by ordinary citizens, who became the backbone of our nation’s resilience. Essex played a pivotal and proud role in that effort. Airfields such as North Weald and Duxford were protecting London and southern England from the relentless attacks of the Luftwaffe. Near Harlow, RAF Matching, which is in my constituency, contributed to the broader air defence and bomb operations, reminding us that the battle of Britain was fought not only in the skies but on the ground, in every village and town that supported it.