Members' Business: 100 Years of Women in the British Armed Forces

That the Parliament notes that 2017 is the centenary of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), which was the first time that women were formally fully enrolled in the armed forces; further notes that more than 57,000 women, including some from the west of Scotland, served in the WAAC from July 1917 till 1921, including some 10,000 in France in a variety of roles, including drivers, clerks, signallers, cooks, bakers, orderlies, waitresses, codebreakers, printers, gardeners, domestics, typists and phone operators; understands that the earliest advocates for the creation of the WAAC, and also the corps' first chief controller and controller, were the Scots, Mona Geddes and Helen Fraser; believes that women form a valued and integral part of the British Armed Forces; welcomes that, since September 2017, every role in the Royal Air Force is now open to women, making it the first branch of the British military to do so, and notes the views that other military branches should follow suit.