ONE OF THE TREASURES of our country is our voluntary organisations and charities. I never fail to be amazed – and moved – by the number of people willing to give up their time to the blind or infirm, Oxfam and Christian Aid, Age Concern, the British Heart Foundation, the RSPCA and to so many other good causes.

Earlier this month, after my morning surgery in Stamford, I was invited to meet the British Legion branches in my constituency – Grantham, Bourne and Stamford. Like their Royal Navy and Royal Air Force equivalents, the British Legion do wonderful work supporting wounded or disabled veterans or those who have fallen on hard times, and the families of those who have lost their lives fighting for the country. And they are a splendid national lobby on behalf of military causes generally.

This meeting was an invaluable opportunity for me to hear what was on the Legion’s mind and to meet some former soldiers in need of continuing medical attention and to hear about their own cases.

I believe that the overwhelming majority of people in this country have the greatest respect for the armed services.

But equally I think far too few have much understanding of the military, of the culture of discipline, thoroughness and precision in which they have to live, or of the strains on family life which military postings and deployments necessarily entail. To me, these things were a revelation when I first became an Opposition spokesman for Defence under William Hague.

Of course, it was very different for the World War II or subsequent National Service generations, when virtually every family had someone in uniform. I also think that while in World War II days, or subsequently in the Cold War, you could stop anyone on the street, ask him or her why we had armed forces and get a confident answer, today the threats are much more difficult to define or to predict and therefore to explain and to understand. But it is vital for the public to grasp them.

I had said this once or twice to Gordon Brown, both before and after I joined the Labour Party. I found he strongly agreed. But I little thought that he would ask me a few months later to lead an inquiry into “National Recognition of the Armed Forces”. I started work just before Christmas with my two colleagues, Air Commodore Martin Sharp and Bill Clark OBE., a senior MOD civil servant.

We are dealing with perceptions, cultures and attitudes. They cannot be changed overnight. But I hope we shall be able to be a catalyst for movement in the right direction.