Armed Forces Covenant

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), not just on securing the debate, but on what I thought was an outstanding introduction that revealed the depth of her knowledge and her work on this matter. I was not aware of the all-party parliamentary group before, but I certainly am now, and I pay tribute to her for its work. I hope to deal with some of the issues that she raised.

I welcome the report. With all respect to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), who talked about the importance of the serviceman, I want to say something about support for veterans and their families, and, in particular, about service accommodation.

The covenant is, and must surely continue to be, a lifetime guarantee for all those who have served our country, and now is as good a time as any for me to express my gratitude to them for their service. A couple of months ago, it was my great pleasure to open the annual conference of the new Westminster Centre for Research and Innovation in Veterans Wellbeing at the University of Chester. I have to say that, unfortunately, the centre is not named after this place; it is named after the late Duke of Westminster, who was a great supporter of the armed forces. It is led by Colonel Alan Finnegan, formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and it has links with the veterans community and the regional Army brigade headquarters.

When I was at the centre, I recounted the story of something that had happened in Chester early in my term as the city’s Member of Parliament. One of the apparently homeless people who were begging in the streets—one of the regulars in the city centre whom we recognise—had a sign saying that he was an ex-serviceman, ex-Army. That great 21st-century phenomenon, the social media storm, then blew up: people were extremely angry about what they considered to be a crime of impersonation, and even asked for the police to be involved. They were not suggesting that it was a crime of impersonation on the grounds that this gentleman was not really homeless; their anger was prompted by their belief that he was claiming to be an ex-serviceman when in fact he was not. I do not know whether he was or not, but the incident takes us back to what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said about his constituent in Wootton Bassett, and, indeed, to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker).

There is a real sense of pride in the members of our armed services, which is a welcome change from the atmosphere of past years that my hon. Friend described. I believe that, not only in Chester but more widely in the country, members of the armed forces should be able to wear their service as a badge of honour.

[Bob Stewart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christian Matheson]

I will always give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Bob Stewart]

May I remind the House that in the 1970s and 1980s, armed forces personnel were specifically ordered not to wear uniform in public because of the Provisional IRA and other terrorist threats? That is one reason why we did not see people wandering around in uniform.

[Christian Matheson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. There is, of course, a terrorist threat today, but I believe that the atmosphere has changed, and changed for the better.

For me, perhaps the most important aspect of that conference was the reminder that, for all our important work on mental and physical health, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, and about which I shall say more later, most of our service veterans are not needy and suffering, but have benefited greatly from the training, experience and comradeship that service gives them, and are continuing to contribute to our society. Discipline, teamwork, initiative, ingenuity and personal responsibility from a young age are all huge benefits to the community as well as the individual. The report refers to some of the successes of the covenant in business, but I fear that we do not always emphasise sufficiently the contribution of ex-service personnel to society. We must certainly not allow them ever again to be seen as burdens on society.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, there are also health needs to be met. We know that military veterans present with a number of emergent health issues, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and obesity. We also know that the number of veterans who enter the judicial system as a result of violence-related crime associated with significant alcohol abuse is larger than the average. It is clear that a considerable amount of money is allocated to schemes involving the armed forces covenant, but the measurable outcomes of such initiatives are less clear. Covenant grants should, when possible, include measurable outcomes in the applications, and, when appropriate—it could perhaps be said that this is a shameless plug for the university in my constituency —the Government might consider using academic partners to shape the way in which valid and reliable information is collected and subsequently reported. I understand that the MOD covenant is looking at this and has invited expressions of interest, and I welcome that.

The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed devoted a long section of her speech to service families, which are referred to in chapter 8 of the report, which I welcome. The role of the family can sometimes be overlooked—although clearly not today, thanks to her—when seeking to support our forces and veterans. Any stress on a serviceman or woman also has an impact on their family. As she said, one way of addressing this is to ensure that there is as much stability in family life as possible, with welcoming surroundings—and that stability might also be reflected in retention rates.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire talked about the consensual nature of the debate, but I will now, if I may, depart slightly from that. The Government have decided to sell off the Dale barracks in Chester, which is home to the Mercian Regiment, a successor of the Cheshire Regiment.

[Bob Stewart]

A fine regiment.

[Christian Matheson]

Yes, indeed. The decision is myopic and damaging. It will do nothing to maintain morale among the servicemen and families, and the popularity of the barracks is reflected in the number of service families who stay in the Chester area after leaving the Army.

The local schools are used to dealing with service children. This does not just mean, for example, making an extra effort to welcome and integrate new arrivals, to give as much stability as possible; primary schools in the Upton area of my constituency, where the barracks are based, are skilled at dealing with the pressures on children when their mums or dads are deployed away. I was not aware of the ten-minute rule Bill of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, but this issue is of great importance to three or four schools in that area, and I will now be looking at what support I can give her on that Bill.

Closing the Dale is unpopular and wrong, and I believe that it is being done solely because land values in Chester are high, which means that it can be sold off more easily.

[Bob Stewart]

Speaking as someone who has lived in the Dale barracks—my regiment was based there—I remind the House that the whole barracks was modernised only about 20 years ago, as the hon. Gentleman will know, and was considered then to be a future base for infantry.

[Christian Matheson]

I am most grateful to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, whom I consider a friend. His service in the Cheshire Regiment we should never fail to recognise, and the experience he brings to the House should never be underestimated. The House may wish to know that he is still held in extremely high regard in my constituency.

I do not think the closure of the barracks will assist the Army in its effectiveness and I ask the Government to think again.

I wish to touch briefly on two other issues. The first was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) and concerns Northern Ireland. The criminal investigations into every death there involving the British Army during the troubles are wrong. If evidence of a crime can be presented, it should be investigated, but a blanket inquiry cannot be justified. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) talked about a statute of limitations; I do not know about that.

As I have mentioned, many former members of the Cheshire Regiment, which served with distinction in Northern Ireland, are either originally from, or have since settled in, my constituency. Their service should be their honour, and I will defend them. Some of them may be implicated now in the new inquiry. In the specific terms of today’s debate on the armed forces covenant, if the Government have not already done so— if they have, I apologise—will they consider guaranteeing full legal support to any ex-serviceman or woman who is dragged into this unfair mess?

My final point is also about veterans and ex-servicemen. I wish to mention my constituent Ray Tindall, along with John Armstrong, Nick Dunn, Nicholas Simpson, Paul Towers and Billy Irving. They remain incarcerated in a prison in Chennai in India wrongly convicted of a crime they did not commit.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this incredibly important point. Does he agree that, as service veterans, they are owed even more of a duty of care by this UK Government, who should be doing everything possible to get them home, where they belong?

[Christian Matheson]

I certainly agree with the hon. Lady and shall draw my comments to a close on that very theme.

Those people are all are ex-servicemen. Ray was in the Indian ocean with the other men to raise a little bit of money, in his case to grow his business in Chester. I will raise the case of the Chennai Six at every opportunity, because, with the greatest respect to MOD Ministers, I do not believe that our Foreign Office is being vigorous enough in its calls on the Indian Government to release the men. Ray has seen active service in recent conflicts, and if the covenant means anything—to them and to me—it means that we must continue all our efforts to bring him and those other lads home.