Armed Forces Covenant

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Again, the issue is covered in one of these publications. We are giving a lot of thought to it and I will write to her on that issue.

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I very much welcome the decision to have this covenant. However, is the noble Lord aware how complex this is going to get? I will give an example that has been touched on already. One of the main problems is service personnel who have been in the services for a long time, who have seen armed conflict and who come out and find it very difficult to settle. It is a question not just of housing. Consequent rates of suicide, attempted suicide, hospital admissions and prison admissions are all extraordinarily high, as the Minister knows. We ought to discuss—perhaps when we get into the detail of the Bill—whether there is not a more sophisticated role for Armed Forces charities, which could have some of the work outsourced to them. Ex-service personnel will often relate better to them than to local or national government institutions.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. We always work very closely with service charities. One area that was raised by the noble and gallant Lord was that of veterans and mental health, where we work very closely with the charity Combat Stress, and with the NHS, to explore and develop appropriate models of care and support. We recently launched a 24-hour mental health helpline, run by the charity Rethink on behalf of Combat Stress, which is funded through the NHS.