Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Baroness Tyler of Enfield and Lord Craig of Radley

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I support the thrust of this probing amendment. Clearly there are enormous differences between trying to deal with people who are still in the services and may be suffering from mental illness and those who have become veterans and, maybe many years later, develop or show symptoms of mental illness. How does that get related to their time in service? There are a number of other practical points that I think have been very well made. I would like to put on the record that I am for this in principle but I can see that there are many difficulties. No doubt the Minister will have a chance to tell us about them.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I add my support for Amendment 14 and apologise for my very croaky voice. I do not normally engage in these discussions, but I have a very strong interest in mental health. As other noble Lords have said, with so much focus on mental health now, it really has gone up the agenda. We have had a succession of extremely important reports, most recently the mental health task force report. Parity of esteem between mental health and physical health runs right the way through that report and all the thinking behind it. If we accept that report—certainly in the debates that I have recently taken part in on this subject, the Government have shown their strong support for the reports and the principles behind them, and that is welcome—it is absolutely vital that parity of esteem between physical and mental health is applied equally to members of our Armed Forces, who do the very difficult jobs that they are asked to take on, as it is to the rest of the civilian population. I simply add my support.