To underline the scale of the loss we are talking about we can think back to some of the appalling tragedies this House has spoken of in the recent past. We can recall the grief aroused by the [1988] tragedy at Lockerbie, [Scotland] in which 270 people were killed, 44 of them British [when Pan Am flight 103 exploded in midair]. In Omagh [in Northern Ireland in 1998,] the last terrorist incident to lead to a recall of Parliament, 29 people lost their lives. Each life lost a tragedy. Each one of these events a nightmare for our country. But the death toll we are confronting here is of a different order.

In the [1982] Falklands War 255 British Service men perished. During the [1992] Gulf War we lost 47.

In this case, we are talking here about a tragedy of epochmaking proportions. . . .