Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns]

I thank the right hon. Member for his question. Of the 300,000 veterans who served in Northern Ireland, among whom I include myself, this will affect a small number, but we must not allow that to be an excuse not to put in place the most well-thought-through and legislatively sound protections. One of those protections is a legal duty to consider veterans’ welfare, so that individuals who are suffering from physical or mental issues because of their service in Northern Ireland do not get dragged back through the system. That is linked to the measures on giving evidence from home, which will ensure that no one needs to return to an area where they may have had distressing or psychologically impactful moments.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

This Christmas, the Government funded travel for up to 35,000 service personnel—including over 2,000 from the east midlands—so that they could be with their family over the festive period. My husband served in Afghanistan, so I know how much it means to have those moments with loved ones. Does the Minister agree that that kind of support demonstrates that our Labour Government are on the side of our armed forces?

[Al Carns]

I thank my hon. Friend for her point, and I thank her husband for his service—we do not say that enough in this country, and I think we should say it more. The previous Government focused on ships, bombs, bullets, guns and rifles, but they did not focus enough on the key asset of our armed forces, which is our people. We are doing that now, including through a comprehensive messaging campaign around the policies that have been put in place to increase recruitment and retention, and we are seeing a statistical change in recruitment and retention because of that—there has been a 30% increase, and an 8% reduction in outflow. That is a fantastic change. We have much more to do, but this Government are heading in the right direction, and we are going to do much more over the years to come.