Oral Answers to Questions

Dean Russell Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I would be very happy to meet that young entrepreneur with the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. That excellent idea would plug in perfectly with the local authority forces champions, with their local education remit. That is a really good idea.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I share my condolences with the family of David Brocklehurst. He will be a massive loss to the Abbots Langley veterans association, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) said.

May I, through the Front-Bench team, thank the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs for recently visiting Watford to meet veterans, including the Abbots Langley group, to hear about the fantastic initiatives in Watford, including Luther Blissett OBE’s Forces United initiative?

[Mr Wallace]

Our veterans are very important to the fabric of society, and it is important that this country is the best place in the world to be a veteran. This Government have been on the right track in delivering that. Yes, there are some things around the veterans card and services, but the agreement of many parts of Government to support the armed forces covenant is the right direction, and we are going from strength to strength.

Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 24th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I rise to support this excellent Bill, both as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on veterans and as a veteran myself. I take my hat off to all of our 2 million-plus veterans in the UK for what they give to our society; it is entirely right that we support them as best we can. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) for bringing the Bill forward. It is an excellent Bill and I am happy to support it today.

Back in the day, as a new and younger MP, I chaired the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill. Members may recall that Lord Lancaster tabled an amendment that the Committee decided not to support. The reason was simple: the MOD asked the Committee to pause so that it could look holistically at the proposal. In complete deference, I say that it is to the full credit of the MOD that it has looked at it; the fact that we are discussing this very Bill on the back of that recommendation is testament to that.

I do not want to cover the Bill itself in too much detail, but we know that there are 12 veterans advisory and pensions committees across the UK: nine in England, one in Scotland, and one each in Northern Ireland and Wales. Their statutory function is to engage at a local level with war pensioners and armed forces compensation scheme recipients, and to make recommendations and representations to Government.

The policy changes in the Bill will provide for VAPCs to be given additional functions in law—that is important. Why is that important? The language in the Social Security Act 1989, which currently underpins this work, is interesting: “engage”, “support”, “represent”, “recommend”, “assist”—it is pretty flowery stuff. My view of VAPCs currently is that they are great organisations—they have good people, are well led and have considerable horse power—but they have no statutory teeth at all. The Bill is about giving VAPCs the statutory teeth they need to be able to provide defined influence—on which more in a minute. At the moment, a whole raft of people in society do great work for our veterans. We have the armed forces champions, VAPCs, fantastic charities, the third sector—the list goes on. I feel strongly that the VAPCs are the right statutory vehicle for taking that forward, and I will explain why and how in due course.

Back in November 2021, the MOD, working closely with the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, provided VAPCs with new non-statutory supplementary terms of reference. That has been looked at over the past 12 months, and the decision has been made to widen those statutory functions and enable matters in the TORs to be set out in secondary legislation. This is about giving the VAPCs teeth. Why are we doing this? It is to better serve the needs of veterans and to better reflect modern-day concerns of the veteran community. Again, that is really important. Is it good that we are doing this? Absolutely, yes.

Clause 1 creates a new enabling power for the Secretary of State to make regulations establishing VAPCs for the specified areas—yes. Clause 2 repeals section 25 of the Social Security Act 1989 to make those consequential amendments in law—yes. Clause 3 is about the time period over which that will be enacted. In my view, it needs to be as soon as possible, and I urge the Minister to push the Bill through as quickly as possible.

Here is the issue: why are we doing this? Why is there a requirement for more powers in law? There is a simple reason, which I will explain. Over the past three months, the all-party parliamentary group on veterans has been running an unprecedented nationwide survey into the experience of our veterans when claiming compensation, war pensions or financial support from Veterans UK. There is no question that the majority of our 2 million veterans in the UK live happily and successfully and have fulfilling lives. But anecdotally, the APPG has been presented over many months with evidence that the experiences of individuals when dealing with Veterans UK are not always positive. The claims process right now is deemed to be too confrontational, too bureaucratic and too antiquated, and it takes too long. It may be that greater scrutiny is needed for that most important task.

In terms of trends, we know that Veterans UK has been under-invested in for years. Some staff may still be working from home, decisions take too long, calls take too long to answer, and the migration from paper records to digitisation has been too protracted. We also know that some veterans remain on a knife edge, with the prolonged, impending nature of life and death outcomes. How is Veterans UK governed? At a superficial level, the levers needed for making the changes that we think are necessary already exist in the MOD. The simple reason is that Veterans UK sits under the MOD. It forms part of Defence Business Services, and therefore the authority for its core outputs does, should and must come from good command and control within the MOD.

Again, why is that? Let us take the brief example of Corporal retired John Smith—we all have a Corporal retired John Smith in our constituencies. Having experienced an issue with Veterans UK, and exhausted his own personal options for redress, he might write to his MP. The MP writes in due course to the Minister—he is sat in his place—but the Minister then writes directly to Veterans UK for the answer. Given that there is currently no independent body dealing with grievances or challenges, Veterans UK today is both judge and jury, and effectively marks its own homework. That is not acceptable.

I have yet to meet the Minister—I will do so next week—but let me give a fleeting insight into what the survey told us. It is a cross-party survey—each of the four co-chairs is from a different party—and it received more than 1,000 responses. The headline statistics are that 76% of the veterans and personnel surveyed would rate their overall experience of claiming compensation through Veterans UK as “poor” or “very poor”, compared with just 6% rating it “good” or “very good”. Likewise, 77% of veterans and personnel rate the communication they received while awaiting the results of the application as “poor” or “very poor”, compared with 6.5% rating it “good” or “very good”. One respondent said:

“Veterans UK make it so difficult for all veterans and you feel like a criminal, there’s no compassion whatsoever.”

That is not acceptable, so we have work to do.

So what? The purpose of the survey is not to situate the estimate, but to generate the evidence needed for further scrutiny. We have now done that. I have some questions for the Minister. Does Veterans UK require a formal structural review or a dedicated delivery board? How do we know that Veterans UK is governed appropriately and whether our veterans are given the best deal? Those questions need to be answered.

To come back to the VAPCs Bill, in my view a ready solution may now exist for providing oversight to Veterans UK if that is deemed necessary. Although service charities such as SSAFA, Cobseo, the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes, along with the new veterans commissioners, all play their part in supporting our veterans, the more formalised body of the veterans advisory and pension committees could offer that statutory solution. I again commend my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy for bringing forward the VAPCs Bill, which will release VAPCs from some of their legal constraints so that they can be more adaptive and innovative in working with veterans.

On the back of the Bill, the VAPCs—a significantly untapped resource—might be able to reshape the extant relationship with the Office for Veterans’ Affairs to add value. They could be given the formal task of holding Veterans UK to account by providing an ombudsman or assurance-type entity. Equally, they could be given formal oversight for decisions that become subject to challenge or independent adjudication.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I think it is so important that this Bill goes through, and I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) for his work on it. I have done a lot of work with local organisations in my constituency of Watford. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) agree that everyone who works to support veterans deserve a lot of credit, given that so much of that work is done voluntarily? If there is the opportunity through the Bill to create a statutory body, that is fantastic. We should applaud everyone who is so supportive of veterans now, who has been in the past and who will be in the future.

[James Sunderland]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. So many people in our fantastic communities across the UK are doing great work in support of our veterans, but of course we can do it better. In my view, giving VAPCs a statutory responsibility and role could be just what we need.

I will wrap up very quickly. This timely Bill, which frees VAPCs from statutory control and limitations, offers a potentially fantastic framework for enhancing their role and outputs to the benefit of all our veterans.

Ukraine

Dean Russell Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), and I want to develop some of the points that she made so powerfully about the humanitarian response. I want to talk about the local response and about support for refugees.

It is hard to believe that, for almost the entire year, we have watched the horrors unfolding in Ukraine, unleashed by Putin, and have witnessed an absolutely awful war and senseless bloodshed and violence. We have seen an incredible response from constituents across the country, and I have seen that particularly in my community, where we have opened our hearts and our homes to refugees in their plight. That is something quite special. There is no more personal response than the support that so many people are giving in opening up their homes to refugees from Ukraine, and I think we should be very proud of that.

Alongside the “big stuff”—the amazing international leadership we have shown in terms of sanctions and the forming of a coalition to support the Ukrainians with military technology, kit and training—there is the domestic “small stuff”. In fact, I think that some of the most powerful support we have given is the opening up of our homes to refugees. I want to send a huge thank you to everyone in my constituency who has done that. I am sure many other Members across the country have thanked their constituents as well.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

May I echo my hon. Friend’s comments? In Watford, we have seen an incredible burst of love and care for Ukrainian people who are over here. Yesterday in St Mary’s church, as part of the remembrance ceremony—supported by Luther Blissett, the Watford football legend, and his partner Lauren—a lady in the group read a beautiful Ukrainian poem from the pulpit. It was an incredible moment, bringing home to us the loss of her family back in Ukraine since she has been here, but also the incredible strength that these people are showing by being here and giving support from afar.

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It builds on a point I was about to make about paying tribute to particular individuals and groups. It is always invidious to do this because there are so many people to single out and so many groups to thank for what they are doing, but I want to raise four areas in my constituency that deserve special attention, in among the work that so many individuals and community groups are doing. One is the Revive café in Chertsey, which has a coffee morning for refugees. One of the key players there is a lady called Lizzie Wayland, who is a member of the Beacon Church, which hosts the cafe. It gives incredible support to people locally.

I also want to draw the House’s attention to Lesia Scholey and Councillor Charu Sood, who have set up Weybridge Friends of Ukraine. They have been pivotal in leading support in Weybridge, alongside Elmbridge CAN and the Weybridge community hub. We also have a lady called Olena Melnyk, a refugee from Ukraine who now works in Runnymede Borough Council helping with translation for Ukrainian refugees. I would also like to thank my team in my office who have been incredible in supporting people going through the visa application process and in working on many pieces of casework supporting refugees once they have moved into my constituency.

Building on that spirit, I would like to give my thanks to the Right Rev. Kenneth Nowakowski, the bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family in London, who came to speak to community groups in my constituency last week. I do not know whether Members have heard him speak, but he is incredible. Without doubt it was one of the best community speech events I have ever been to. He has been central to the refugee response from the start and he spoke about the support he has set up and the lessons learned, and gave a cautious commentary on what he sees for the future. He made two points in his speech that I hope he will not mind me mentioning. One of them really sent a chill through me. When he visited Ukraine recently, he went to a school and a little boy came up to him, very excited to see him. He said, “Come, come—you have to see our bomb shelter. It’s really cool.” That sent a chill, but in a sense it is also quite sweet, because it shows the resilience of children and the excitement of how life changes and we have to adjust in the context of conflict.

The other thing the bishop reflected on in his talk was when people can start thinking about forgiveness. Given where we are now, that is very difficult to contemplate, but of course every war ends and things move on. One of the important things that we are talking about today is the rebuilding of Ukraine and what peace will look like. I say this cautiously to the House, because it is a difficult statement to make right now, given where we are and the pain that everyone is suffering, but perhaps these could be the early stages of thinking about the future that we want to have and the future that we can start hoping for as this awful conflict comes to an end.

I would like to thank all the people who came to the event in my constituency: the community groups, the elected representatives and the people who have supported refugees across my constituency. Our communities are precious, and my communities in Runnymede and Weybridge are without doubt the things that make my constituency the best place, in my view—I am sure my colleagues would say similar things about their constituencies—and we need to support them. We need to recognise the incredible work that they do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty]

All options remain on the table. I note that Ukrainians have, thanks to western support, been terrifically effective in taking down some of the ballistic barrage in defending their skies, but I am not going to rule out anything from the Dispatch Box.

The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the Chair of the International Development Committee, made a good remark about the HALO Trust. I can confirm that we continue to support the HALO Trust, which has so far cleared 16,000 square metres of land in the Kyiv oblast and will continue to do so. We have pledged £220 million of humanitarian aid. I assure her that that is reaching the frontline, as it were: the people who need it. We are working with the United Nations, the Red Cross and NGOs. Some 13.4 million people have been helped so far with funds distributed. She also mentioned accountability, and I draw reference to my previous remarks about the International Criminal Court. She appealed for a joined-up approach, which is exactly what we are after. I have not yet read her report, but I look forward to reading it, and I am grateful to her for bringing it up.

My hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) made a moving speech reflecting on the great compassion shown by his constituents. He referred to the remarkable way they had opened up their hearts and homes. Every Member of this House will have seen that in their own constituency; I have certainly seen it in Aldershot. I second the thanks he put on record to the Revive café in Chertsey, the Weybridge Friends of Ukraine and the Weybridge community hub. He asked a technical question about Homes for Ukraine and the extent to which provision might be made directly to the local authority if it was not going via host families. I have not got an answer right now, but I will ensure that a colleague from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities writes to him, as well as the Chair of the International Development Committee.

[Dean Russell]

May I share the points that colleagues and Members from across the House made about the need to support Ukrainian refugees in the long term, for as long as they need to be here? Will the Minister reflect on how we support their mental health as they deal with crisis from afar? In particular, will he reflect on how Government and local government can give support to support groups that are helping so many at the moment?

[Leo Docherty]

My hon. Friend’s intervention is well noted, and I put on record my thanks for what he does as a mental health champion and for his support of our Ukrainian friends in his constituency.

The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) spoke movingly in an appeal for solidarity among the allies on Ukraine. That is what we see on the diplomatic front, on the military front and in terms of reconstruction. I see that visibly and powerfully when travelling and talking to allies right across Europe, and we are bold in our resolve to see this through.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) spoke passionately and laid out three interesting points, first on the military dimension and an appeal to provide long-range fires. As I said, I am not going to rule anything in or out at the Dispatch Box, but all options continue to be under review. I appreciate how he described the Ukrainians’ courage as having bought them a huge advantage, and I think that is at the heart of the successful prosecution of their counter-attack. Their courage has bought them significant advantage. He also referred to the utility of having an infinite supply of arms and drew an interesting historical parallel with Miloševic. I thought that was interesting in the context of there being an arsenal of hope in the western allies. I thought that was useful and I am grateful.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill referred to political pressure and forthrightly challenged the Government to designate the United Russia party and Russia as a state sponsor of terror. That is an interesting proposition. I will not make a pronouncement about that but I am grateful for the passionate way in which he raised those questions. He also raised some interesting technical questions about sanctions. We are getting after not just sanctioning but seizing and ensuring that things such as the moneys from the sale of Chelsea football club get to those who need it. I am grateful for his interest.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) made an interesting parallel to 1916 and gave some good insights from his discussions with a Ukrainian MP colleague, for which I was most grateful. He made an interesting remark about Catherine the Great’s approach to her borders, which is worrying given the imperial parallels that are sometimes drawn by the Russian leadership themselves.

The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) gave some good reflections on the impressive sight of President Zelensky visiting Kherson, leading from the front as ever. I was grateful for his remarks about that. He speaks from a position of knowledge, having visited Kyiv recently. I am grateful for his constructive and positive tone, as ever. We will continue to support the HALO Trust’s effort to continue de-mining. We are working with allies to counter disinformation across the region in all domains. That continues at pace. On the appeal for unity, I think we do have that with our allies. He mentioned drones and Iran; we are getting after that with our very aggressive sanctions policy, but we will look at dual use in that regard.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dean Russell Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)]

We have made 550 service family accommodation units available. All questions on this issue should be directed at local authorities, but we are doing everything we can to ensure that Afghan families are settled in the way they deserve.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Watford’s ex-servicemen’s club, where I met the fantastic staff during an evening of darts. While I was there, I met the founder of the Official Minds at War charity, Norman Mcguigan, who works closely with local resident Liz Burns and many great volunteers throughout the country to provide mental health support for veterans. Good jobs help to deliver good mental health; what is being done to ensure that service personnel can take up jobs in our thriving defence industry?

[Leo Docherty]

rose—