This year remembrance had an extra significance for me, as I have enrolled on the Parliamentary Armed Forces Programme and will be spending the next year attached to the Royal Navy, learning about the critical role they play in the defence of our nation and the protection of our way of life.

The programme began with a fascinating look at defence strategy, focusing on the changing risks in the world and examining future world orders including the impact of demographic change (e.g. ageing populations in the west and increasing birth rates in Africa), climate change and the impact of non-state actors. We were also introduced to the wide variety of military careers and routes into the armed forces as well as receiving detailed briefs on current conflicts.

Whilst at the Joint Command HQ in Shrivenham, we witnessed demonstrations of equipment used in cyber defence and technology including cardboard drones resembling Airfix models and robotic dogs as well as getting up close to equipment like Tornado jets, Apache helicopters and Challenger tanks.

The most humbling part of the visit was a talk from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission who are responsible for protecting and maintaining, in perpetuity, the graves of 1.7 million Allied war graves across 157 countries.

We learned that the founder of CWGC believed that every life lost should be remembered equally, with headstones of identical size regardless of rank or status. It was therefore humbling to hear that work is now taking place to find and recognise service personnel of African or Indian heritage who had not been commemorated at the time and to create memorials to them in their home countries.  

Their work to educate communities is becoming more difficult as living memory of World Wars diminish. You can support their work through their website where you can also find out about those who died for our country in either of the World Wars who lived on, or close to, your street.

In the coming weeks, I will be spending time with the Royal Marines, RM Coastal Defences and visiting the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.  Through these visits and engaging with defence related businesses, and meeting veterans or support services in our community, I hope to gain a stronger understanding of the issues and their impact in our communities.

I was humbled to attend remembrance events across Mid Dorset and North Poole this week and to leave tributes at those memorials I could not be at for the commemoration. Reading war memorials and seeing the extent to which some of our communities were impacted by conflict reminds us of the gravity of the role I play as your Member of Parliament.

With the change of leadership in the USA and the growing tensions across the world, conversations about how much we spend on defence, and how we treat our military personnel is becoming more important than it has for many years.  The possibility of voting to commit troops to war weighs heavily on me. With the election of President Trump bringing the conflicts in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the South China Sea into sharp focus, it is clear we must work harder than ever at diplomacy and building allies across the world.