Service Accommodation
Alison Bennett Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend is 100% right. She is also speaking with considerable experience, because of the importance of Portsmouth to our nation’s defence, and the sheer scale of its service accommodation. Indeed, I look forward to visiting Portsmouth. The Defence Committee, along with its staff, will be visiting the city very soon. And, yes, every instance of substandard accommodation is unacceptable, and we must collectively work to rectify matters.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Some 40 years ago, I was growing up in army accommodation, because my dad was serving in the Royal Signals. Even then, I remember my parents talking about the problems that they were having with their accommodation. It is extraordinary that all this time later, things have probably got worse, rather than better. I want to put on record that this is about not only service personnel but their spouses and children who live in the accommodation. When service personnel are serving away from home, often for months at a time, the family’s health and mental health is impacted by the quality of their accommodation. Does the Chair of the Committee agree that the impact on mental health is important?
Mr Dhesi
I could not agree more with the hon. Member. She has got to the nub of it. If our brave servicemen and women are anxious about what is going on with their families when they are serving around the world, that affects their mental health. It also affects the mental health of the families themselves—the partners and the children. It is extremely important that we rectify matters, otherwise armed services personnel will vote with their feet and walk away.
LGBT Veterans: Etherton Review
Alison Bennett Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
As has been said today, it is almost extraordinary now, in 2024, to think that for so long the UK armed forces upheld a ban on LGBT+ personnel. The ban allowed for the legal discharge of LGBT+ individuals from their duties, and in some cases it meant that people were criminally prosecuted. LGBT+ veterans were outed to their families and friends without their consent, forced to endure stigma and discrimination. They lost their jobs, and had their medals and their pensions taken from them. Some were criminally convicted simply for being themselves. This has made it nearly impossible for them to rebuild their lives, as they have faced significant barriers to finding employment and moving forward.
My constituent Stephen Purves, from Haywards Heath, is among the thousands who were so deeply wronged. Stephen was the last RAF officer to go to prison for being gay. He served—indeed, endured—six months in a civilian prison, and he did so solely as a result of being himself. To add insult to injury, he was stripped of his pension. He was court-martialled and dismissed in disgrace from the RAF in 1985. He should have received a pension from the age of 38; he did not.
Financially, Stephen was left in ruins. He has had to work far harder to make ends meet ever since. That financial insecurity, coupled with the difficulty of finding employment with a criminal conviction, is just one of the reasons he was left mentally scarred. He tells me that those scars remain. He has been left to battle with the mental health repercussions of this scandal for decades. As well as the obvious and severe stresses and strains of the financial situation that he was left in, he has endured stigmatisation, isolation and social exclusion.
It is indefensible that those who served our country and put their lives on the line for our safety and freedom were treated in that way. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that LGBT+ veterans receive the justice that they deserve. That absolutely includes guaranteeing fair compensation for every affected veteran. I welcome the increased compensation announced today, but I am sorry to say that I do not think the maximum award of £70,000 is sufficient, given the other compensation schemes announced by the Government, including for the Post Office Horizon scandal. I do not think that that compensation is sufficient for someone like Steve, who lost his career and his liberty, who went bankrupt, and who suffers to this day. I urge the Government to go further.
Remembrance and Veterans
Alison Bennett Excerpts(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
My constituent and resident of Burgess Hill, able seaman George Chandler, was due to lead the blind veterans at the remembrance parade on Remembrance Sunday the weekend after next. Sadly, George died earlier this month. He was 99 years old. I never had the privilege of meeting George, but I have been able to speak to his son Paul, who gave me a wonderful insight into his father. He was full of character and, in Paul’s words, an old rogue.
George was born to a working-class family off the Old Kent Road. When war was declared, aged 14 George stayed in London—he was not evacuated—and experienced the Blitz in all its horror. His father, Will, had been a soldier at the Somme, and George was determined that he would not be what he called one of the “poor bloody infantry”. He was not going to go into the Army. When he was still 17, he pestered and pestered the recruiters at the naval office to sign him up. Eventually, they took him on, even though he had not yet reached his 18th birthday.
George saw active service in the channel as a gunner on a boat, with close combat with the Germans occurring very frequently. On D-day, he provided cover for American troops landing on Omaha beach, watching the slaughter before his eyes. He returned from the D-day landings to Newhaven in East Sussex, and saw rows and rows of empty coffins waiting for the dead.
This year, George was one of a handful of remaining veterans who took part in the 80th anniversary commemorations. He went to No. 10 Downing Street, HMS Belfast and the trooping of the colour. This caused George’s family a certain amount of consternation, for George was not a Conservative. His family were terribly worried about what George might say when he met Government Ministers. They had a plan that if George let rip, they would whisk him away in his wheelchair before any embarrassment could be caused. I am pleased to say to Conservative Members that he met Gillian Keegan, Grant Shapps and the former Prime Minister’s wife, and no event occurred.
I asked Paul what George’s messages to the House would be, and the answer—what Paul thought his dad would have said—was characteristically robust. He was passionate about remembering his shipmates, those who gave their tomorrow for our today. He stayed in contact throughout his life with the daughter—
Alison Bennett
I will draw my comments to a close, Madam Deputy Speaker. George’s messages would be: “Don’t be stupid like my generation. Don’t do it again. Don’t listen to the stupid politicians. Most of all, we must have more compassion for each other.”