Al Carns

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing the debate, and for giving hon. Members the opportunity to highlight the fantastic work of the Royal British Legion and its thousands of volunteers. As the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) said, the number of hon. Members present today is a great reflection of British politics, as is the mix of political parties and the unity we have behind those who have served, their families and those who are still serving. It is important to champion them. They are what stands between us and tyranny, as they demonstrated many years ago, in 1939. I think it is worth while to recognise that the RBL does a fantastic job at three levels. First, it does an amazing job at the national level. It ties society and defence back together. We have, perhaps, more of a societal and defence drift than ever before. For many of us, our grandfathers or grandmothers served, and we had an immediate connection to defence. That is not necessarily the case today. The RBL acts as a glue and a binding mechanism to pull us back together, and to help us remember why those who serve are so important to the nation. Secondly, behind all the big events—whether that is Invictus, the D-day commemorations or VE Day, which is approaching—one organisation is always absolutely central, which is, of course, the RBL. It does so much of the heavy lifting. It is really impressive. Thirdly, there is the local level. We have heard so many amazing stories today of individual RBL branches doing an amazing job not just to cohere councils and deliver support, but, importantly, at the personal level to change thousands of people’s lives. We owe a debt of gratitude to all those in the RBL.