Universal Credit (EAC Report)

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for being allowed to speak in the gap. I apologise for not giving notice; I did not think I was going to be here. I had not even noticed that the debate was going on.

The report led by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, seems excellent. I am not surprised by the disappointment in the reaction. I was a member of an ad hoc committee on financial exclusion that reported in 2017. We did some of it on universal credit, although we did not go into the same depth. I agree with everything that has been said.

In the time I have, I want briefly to comment on people and mental welfare. Mental welfare has become an increasingly important topic, led by Prince William and others. It really is important and, as things do not go so well, it becomes more and more important.

One of the problems is that universal credit is too complicated. We have just heard that it is so complicated that we do not understand it. People feel like criminals when they go through this process; I will come on that in a minute. The five-week wait puts people in debt. The Government will argue that that is not the whole reason, but we know that there is an increase in the number of people who are going into debt, for one reason or another, as a result of universal credit.

We went to Toynbee Hall, among other places. As noble Lords may be aware, this is an amazing charity that supports disadvantaged people. Many things struck me there. One was a lady who I and others were talking to. She said, “I just pray that you can give me some help. This is my correspondence about universal credit”—and it was a full lever arch file. She could not understand it and we could not understand it. All it said was, “Thank you for the answer to your last question. Will you please answer the following? Thank you for the answer to that; will you please do this?” She was at her wits’ end and felt she was being criminalised.

The next problem is the wait for money and people going into debt. This has a far greater effect than the Government ever seem to accept. The low-income group is an incredibly proud group of people. They care for their pennies, worry about the food they buy for their families and manage their expenses in an amazing way. Then a change in system dictated by government puts them into debt. They say, “We’ve never been criminals; we’ve always obeyed everything. But, to me, being in debt is a crime”. It does not just hit them; they are destroyed by this.

Therefore, when the Government say that they do help but there will be some people in debt, take a moment to understand the hundreds of thousands of people who, first, are made to feel like criminals because they have to fill in so many forms and answer so many questions and, secondly, feel like criminals because they are not able to hold their heads up and say, “I have never owed anybody anything”. Something like 40% of the population are not able to repair their washing machine out of cash—and we then do this to them. I ask the Minister whether the Government would consider this further. It brings you to tears to listen to them, when you can do nothing whatever to help. We have devised a system that has taken them away from their careful life planning —not borrowing, because they hate it, and not stealing, because they are not criminals. We then put them into this and, in three weeks, they are in debt—and, as far as they are concerned, they are criminals.

Queen's Speech

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Brookeborough]

My Lords, I too welcome the new Front Bench and in particular the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Astor, for whom I have great respect in these spheres. I welcome the chance to speak in this debate. I have spoken previously on the mental welfare of our ex-service men and women and our duty, through the military covenant, to them and their families. I make no apology for bringing this up again: it is the single most important asset that we have in the military. I last spoke about it during the debate on the previous Queen’s Speech, but on the health day. Today, of course, the subject is defence. I realise that we are addressing a new Government, and I am sure that noble Lords will be glad to hear that I shall not repeat everything I said previously.

The highest-quality care leads to good morale in our Armed Forces community and is vital to much of our foreign policy. That is why it is so relevant. Service men and women with physical injuries or mental problems while in service are already on the books, so to speak. I am addressing the problems of those who leave with no recorded symptoms and later develop mental health problems. I am aware that the NHS becomes responsible for veterans, but the responsibility to our service community through the military covenant involves all government departments, not one or two or slipping between them.

I have some later information from Combat Stress on this subject. The recent findings by the King’s Centre for Military Health Research are clear. The psychological impact of deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan is being measured by the unit as a snapshot of a very long journey. One of the key points is that this is a study of, mainly, serving personnel, not veterans. It is important that we recognise that the roughly unchanged rate of PTSD and other common health disorders found by this study is still extremely significant to the nation, even if there is statistically no evidence of the rate increasing due to a short space of time, as I shall show in a minute.

The high number of service personnel being deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that in future there will be a substantial increase in veterans needing support for psychological injury. A prevalence of 4 per cent probable PTSD, when applied to 180,000 personnel who have served in these theatres, means, potentially, that 7,200 will suffer from this debilitating condition. When we consider that the research findings go further, showing a prevalence of 19.7 per cent for symptoms of common mental disorders and of 13 per cent for alcohol abuse, the number of ex-service personnel needing help in future could be drastically higher than the number that Combat Stress, the NHS and other providers are currently supporting.

Of the new veterans who came to Combat Stress for support last year, the average length of service was 10.2 years, and the average period between discharge from service and first contact with Combat Stress was 14.3 years. The findings of the study are the first chapters of a very long story. Fourteen years is too long to wait. What is being done to decrease this time and make sure that effective care and support are never far from British veterans who have sacrificed their peace of mind in the service of their country? What sort of targets would the Minister like to set for this in future?

It should also be noted that the King’s study had a low—56 per cent—response and could underestimate the true problem. It is interesting to note that there are differences between the US and this country. The US has higher PTSD but lower alcoholism, but it has a different culture about drinking while in the forces. We should not ignore the statistic about alcoholism as far as mental health goes, because people use alcohol to mask mental problems and it therefore tends to be the start of the trouble.

In Northern Ireland, we have the Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment Aftercare Service, in which I declare an interest as a board member. It leads the way in this field, although only certain aspects apply to the rest of the UK. The MoD is to start interviewing personnel leaving the services and scoring them for future reference and attention. We did that years ago in Northern Ireland. However, we have outreach in the aftercare service and can follow up the findings and keep in contact with the veterans thereafter. The results of the scoring are useful only if there is outreach follow-up. In Great Britain, as opposed to Northern Ireland, there is no such system in place. The MoD has created a new mechanism, the Army Recovery Capability, using the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency and the Royal British Legion to track veterans through supported civilian life, the new term for post-service life. However, I believe that it has neither the manpower nor the funds, and the Royal British Legion is purely volunteer. From seeing the service work in Northern Ireland, I do not believe that that is adequate. We can monitor the movement of millions of farm animals within Europe, yet we cannot keep in touch with several hundred thousand veterans within the UK. That is an indictment of the systems that we have. When mentioning the aftercare service in Northern Ireland, will the Minister reassure us that future funding for that service will extend beyond 2012, which is where it currently goes up to? There is an increasing need for it, and it is recognised as being by far the most successful model in the United Kingdom.

I have one more veteran subject to mention quickly. As a result of the Troubles, we have in Northern Ireland a Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, who is currently funded to the tune of £36 million. Within this is an embryonic memorial visit scheme for service families who were bereaved during the Troubles to visit Northern Ireland. The aim is to provide a measure of comfort and reconciliation individually, not to develop commemorative events or ceremonies. A parallel to this scheme is the World War Two Heroes Return programme. The MoD’s support for this pilot scheme in Northern Ireland is required, and I ask the Minister to assure us that that will occur. The funds are already there, and a pilot project would indicate future need. The MoD funds will not be affected.

I hope that this Government will enable the country to fulfil its obligation to our veteran community by producing joined-up government to provide seamless support to it in the future.