Veterans Strategy

Baroness Helic Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the debate and am grateful to my noble friend Lord Attlee for initiating it. It is humbling to speak after so many noble Lords who have not only served in, but led and commanded, the British Armed Forces on the battlefield.

In Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway, there is a character called Septimus Smith, who will be familiar to many of your Lordships. In the book, it is 1923; Septimus has returned from the First World War with his life utterly changed. His war experiences have left him incapable of functioning in society and he struggles with his mental health. The people he meets in St James’s Park think that he behaves oddly and cannot relate to him. He ends his life in a violent way. He dies not on a battlefield in a foreign land but in his homeland, which is now at peace.

A hundred years have passed since the First World War. We have seen technological advances beyond anything that could have been imagined in 1914 or 1918. We have deepened our understanding of mental health issues and developed vastly the medical care available to treat them. Yet service men and women today still battle misunderstandings and mental health challenges not dissimilar to those faced by the fictional Septimus. The recent reports that 40 former or current service men and women are believed to have taken their lives this year are shocking. They too died a violent death, not on a battlefield in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere, but here in today’s Britain, among us.

The past three decades have seen the Armed Forces exposed to the most intensive and sustained combat conditions and the highest casualty rates since World War II. I want to put on record my admiration and gratitude for all those who serve our country in uniform and the sacrifices they make on our behalf. I therefore welcome the Government’s efforts to ensure not only that veterans of the UK Armed Forces are recognised for their service, but that we seek to go a step further in understanding them and upholding their status in our society, based on not only recognition and appreciation, but respect.

I welcome the work done over the past eight years by this Government and their predecessor, the coalition Government, on the Armed Forces covenant, which was enshrined in the Armed Forces Act 2011, and the Ministerial Covenant and Veterans Board. I also welcome the leadership shown by the Secretary of State for Defence in establishing this new veterans strategy. I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister and my right honourable friend the Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans, Tobias Ellwood, for their tireless work to improve the support available to veterans, in particular the focus on mental health and homelessness—complex issues that need strong and focused attention.

I also want to pay tribute to the work done by Lord Ashcroft, who, until a few months ago studiously and imaginatively worked on the Veterans’ Transition Review and subsequent updates. His contribution was a crucial factor in the recent advances made by the Government, local authorities, the devolved Administrations, the charity sector and the Armed Forces in the area of veterans policy.

I welcome the Government’s efforts to ensure that all these initiatives, which have been developed separately until now, are brought together under one umbrella, and their determination to counter any perception that service in the Armed Forces has a damaging effect on personnel, notwithstanding some problems that we must address.

I welcome the collective commitment that has been shown, but want to address three points. First, as we rightly seek to help and support those who fought and are now trying to reintegrate into civilian life, we must not forget the families of those who did not come home. There is no compensation for losing a parent, but we can show our collective gratitude to those who paid the ultimate price. I am therefore particularly pleased to see the Government continuing the scholarship programme for children whose parents died in service. How many students have benefited from the scholarships since they were announced in 2010? What lessons have been learned to ensure that the scholarships are more widely available to those who need support for their education? Is there a plan to have the scheme upgraded and widened so that more children can benefit? Should the scheme be extended to the families of service personnel who have taken their lives?

The second issue is accommodation. I welcome the Government’s commitment to aid the transition of service personnel to civilian life and understanding of the vital part that the access to suitable housing plays in this process. Yet some service personnel still fall through the support net and find themselves homeless. What thought has been given to whether surplus service living accommodation can be used to house service personnel who have become homeless or are living in accommodation not suitable for their needs, at least during their transitional period?

Finally, the Armed Forces are a reflection of our wider society, which is sadly blighted by the hidden problem of domestic violence and domestic abuse. I suspect that most of us know somebody who has been affected by it. I can imagine the stress of a battlefield only exacerbating this problem in some cases. I welcome the Ministry of Defence’s launch earlier this year of its first defence domestic abuse strategy to tackle domestic abuse in the Armed Forces and defence civilian communities. Will this apply to veterans’ families as well?

The Government can be proud of the effort invested and the outcomes achieved in ensuring that veterans and their families are given more of the support, help and respect that they deserve. This is our collective duty. Time will tell whether what has been put in place is enough. We must therefore strive always to do more and better.