Plenary, 11 Nov 2009

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Official Report 361KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. It is perhaps particularly apt that, on this remembrance day, our time for reflection leader is the Rev Air Vice-Marshall Peter Mills of the Royal Air Force.

The 11th day of the 11th month: it is obviously remembrance.

Twenty years ago, while serving unaccompanied in the Falkland Islands, I was ready for the "We miss you, dad" and "When are you coming home?" letters from my children. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the impact of my six-year-old daughter's letter, saying, "Remember me, dad?" I get the same kind of feeling every time I hear the Kohima epitaph:

"When you go homeTell them of us and sayFor your tomorrowWe gave our today."

That is probably because both are personal.

To Stalin is attributed the saying, "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic." The one death that touches our own family brings far more grief than the thousands who die all around the world on any given day. The shared personal tragedy of two world wars has diminished over the years and a more detached national remembrance has evolved. The majority today do not remember faces and conversations, a physical presence or memories shared. However, a national remembrance is so important. For one thing, it has heightened awareness of the cost of military interventions in such places as Afghanistan, resulting in public support for military personnel even if there is not always a corresponding support for the political decision to be there.

It was Jesus who said that no king sets out to give battle without first counting the cost. Is it worth it—and can we afford it? Having been a part of very high meetings within the RAF, I can bear witness to the fact that the second of those two questions is very high on the agenda. Not that those who run the RAF have much choice; as you can imagine, there is no money in the pot and the order of the day is "efficiencies", "leaning processes" and the constant pressure for top-level managers to absorb more risk.

Defence, of course, has not been devolved to this Parliament, but there are many other areas where we have to count the cost. The "Can we afford it?" question is perhaps the easier one to answer and is one that we feel we can do something measurable about. The "Is it worth it?" question is far harder because it involves human cost and seeks to measure the impact that our decisions have on individual people. It is, however, the question that most people are interested in and one that we always need to keep firmly in mind. On this day of remembrance, it is certainly the most frequently asked question by the bereaved who visit Royal Air Force Lyneham and it will be the question by which all our actions and decisions will be measured in future: "Is it worth it?"

Thank you for listening.