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Gordon Brown has made his first speech in the Commons since stepping down as prime minister.
The former prime minister chose to make his long awaited return to speak in support of the Rosyth shipyard in his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency as part of a debate on the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
"Rosyth is the only base that can assemble the aircraft carriers that this country has commissioned. It is also the only base that can serve us by refitting the carriers in the future," he said.
"When announcements are to be made by the Ministry of Defence, it is important to recognise that Rosyth is the base best able to refit the carriers in the years to come."
Brown's appearance attracted an unusually large crowd for an adjournment debate, with around 100 MPs sticking around in Westminster in order to witness his intervention.
Usually the short evening sessions that take place after 10pm attract only a handful of MPs.
Brown also used the occasion to defend his government's decision to order the carriers in the first place which he said was taken for "military reasons alone".
"I want to be clear about why the aircraft carriers are important to this country. I believe that the debate has been clouded by many things that have been said over the last few weeks," he said.
"These are military decisions, made on military advice for military reasons. The reason the decisions have been made is that if we are to retain a global presence as a Navy, as armed forces and as a country, we will need these aircraft carriers in the years to come.
"We will need them not only because they are important to the defence of the Falklands, but because they are important for maintaining the 500-year role of the Royal Navy in being available to assist in any part of the world."
Having listened to the response of defence minister Peter Luff Brown intervened once more to demand the carriers be refitted in Britain, rather than abroad as has been suggested.
"Why can the minister not assure us that the aircraft carriers will be refitted within the United Kingdom?" he asked.
But Luff said while he could not rule out the possibility they would be maintained abroad.
"The assumption is that they will be refitted in the UK," he said. "But I am not going to give him that categorical assurance at this stage, for reasons that I am sure he, as a former chancellor of the exchequer and prime minister, will understand."
The debate was initiated by Dunfermline and West Fife MP Thomas Docherty, who began his remarks with a tongue-in-cheek recognition that the high turn out may have had more to do with the presence of Brown than the subject up for discussion.
"I pleased that the question of how our new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are to be maintained has attracted such widespread interest in the House," he said.
"My constituents and everyone in Fife can only be reassured by the keen interest shown by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House in this important issue."
Brown will return to the Commons a week today when he gives evidence to the Commons international development committee on the New York millennium development goals summit.
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