Last weekend I celebrated and commemorated the duty, dedication and sacrifices of our military personnel - past and present - for Armed Forces Day.
The day kicked off with a fantastic borough parade through the streets of Romford where local veterans, cadets and serving personnel treated shoppers at the market to a musical military spectacle. This was followed by a service and celebration at the Town Hall with guests including the Mayor, our Borough Leader, Cllr Roger Ramsey, and Romford MP, Andrew Rosindell.
I then headed over to our constituency to lay a wreath at the memorial in Hornchurch Cemetery to thank our Forces on behalf of residents, and then joined a lunch celebration at the British Legion in Hornchurch. It was a day both happy and moving, and it was a pleasure to speak to military families and listen to veterans' stories about their service.
Back in parliament, I attended a private briefing with Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, at which I was able to raise some of the issues that had been brought to my attention over the weekend. Michael gave us an overview of progress in Iraq and Syria to root out Daesh, particularly in the Old City of Mosul. Our troops have been engaged in valuable work training fifty thousand Iraqi and Kurdish forces and the RAF has played an important role in the air campaign. Meanwhile our Department for International Development has been working to stem the humanitarian fallout of the continuing conflict.
I pressed the Defence Secretary on the question of British nationals fighting for Daesh and how they would be handled if captured. The Ministry of Defence is working with allies to deal with the return routes to Britain and to try to get fighters tried in Iraq. Huge amounts of work are also being carried out in the cyber arena to reduce Daesh's online reach.
The Defence Secretary reassured us that the defence of Iraq is largely being carried out by Iraqi fighters and that is one of the big differences that we have seen with previous campaigns. Everybody acknowledges that there now needs to be huge efforts towards a political reconciliation in Iraq that avoids the mistakes of the past which isolated particular groups from fully participating in the governance of the country.