Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Soon many of us will be held rapt by television's SAS Rogue Heroes, which returns to screens soon. The series will focus on the elite unit as, back from initial success in the desert war, they face the much sterner challenge of Ayrshire where they were briefly based until they went into action in Italy and occupied Europe.
With legendary founder, David Stirling languishing in Colditz, the focus will be on the new Commanding Officer, Blair Paddy Mayne. Mayne should by rights have been decorated with the Victoria Cross, our premier gallantry award, for his action rescuing pinned-down troops in Oldenburg, Germany, in 1945.
Yet the award was downgraded. This was perhaps because of Mayne's enthusiastic off-duty drinking and his penchant for punching senior officers, but it might also have to do with the suggestion that he was a homosexual. It is quite remarkable that such a martial giant should be doomed to be the bravest man who never won a VC over something so entirely irrelevant.
Yet today, we must confront the reality that outmoded views of LGBT people persisted in the military for far longer than they ought to have. And while nothing can be done now to right the wrong done to Blair Mayne, this government is addressing the suffering of people very much alive today.
Take my Dumfries and Galloway constituent, Alan, once a teenager, proud to serve in RAF Blue.
He told me, 'arrested for being gay, I was sexually assaulted by the Special Investigation Branch and made to endure horrific, humiliating treatment during a gruelling three-day interview.
‘As an 18-year-old kid, I lost all contact with my family and attempted to take my life five times due to the way I was treated, the long-term effect this has had on my mental health and family connections has not been easy.'
Madam Deputy Speaker, the Government is in a position to deliver that thing that veterans such as both Blair Mayne and my constituents, Alan, would recognise as vital to all military operations: speed.
We've heard the clock is ticking, time is moving on and the gallant and the right honourable gentleman opposite who will sum up is no stranger to combat, but he may yet find the Treasury a difficult opponent on the timings here.
He may need the courage of Mayne to prevail in that struggle and we all must hope that this scheme is streamlined and delivered at a pace and perhaps in a way that the Post Office Horizon compensation system was not.
