SOMME AND YPRES WAR GRAVES

Early day motion 982, tabled 12 March 2002 by Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat). Signed by 65 members.

That this House recognises the debt that this country will forever hold to the hundreds of thousands of men killed in battle during the First World War; calls on the Government to emphasise to the French Government that any proposal to build an airport over the graves of British soldiers killed at the Somme in 1918 goes against the terms of the granting of land 'in perpetuity' by the then French Government for the creation of British cemeteries; further notes that the proposed construction of a motorway over the battlefield of Pilckem Ridge in the Ypres area of Belgium will cover land where the bodies of nearly 100,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen still lie undiscovered, and will split the battlefield area in half, thereby destroying the peace and tranquility of the place which has constituted a pilgrimage site for well over 80 years; and calls for appropriate representations to be made to the Belgian Government.

Signatures by party: Labour 37, Liberal Democrat 11, Conservative 7, UUP 4, Labour/Co-operative 3, Scottish National Party 2, Plaid Cymru 1.