Armed Forces Bill

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the men and women who serve our nation in uniform and our veterans who have selflessly sacrificed so much to protect this great nation. They deserve our utmost respect, gratitude and thanks. I also give thanks to the armed forces and veterans breakfast club in Bury where people work to help veterans, their families and service personnel, bringing the entire community together and reducing social isolation. They meet throughout the week. This should be commended and I put my thanks on record today.

I warmly welcome this Bill. I have the utmost confidence that it will ensure that veterans are treated fairly when accessing key public services, as well as improving the service justice system. As chairman of the all-party group on alcohol harm, I make particular reference to new clause 6 with regard to alcohol disorders. Although I appreciate the reasons that the Government are not bringing forward a measure at the moment, it needs to be explored further so that we do our utmost to ensure that anyone who has a disorder, a dependency or a need—whether they are a recent recruit, still serving or a recent veteran—can be given the help they need throughout their life.

In particular, the Bill will enshrine the armed forces covenant into law, increasing awareness among public bodies of the unique nature of military service and improving the level of service for members of the armed forces community in regard to their healthcare, housing and education. I imagine that every Member of this House is aware of veterans out there who have been unable to access help and services that they desperately need, so I warmly welcome the covenant being enshrined in law.

However, our veterans deserve more than the appreciation of a grateful nation. They have protected and built our country, and they deserve our tireless commitment to advancing their opportunities. We must build a brighter future worthy of their sacrifice and that of their families. That is why I welcome the funding announced in the Budget by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in support of veterans welfare. An additional £10 million will be invested in the armed forces covenant fund in 2021-22, which will deliver charitable projects and initiatives to support veterans’ mental health. This latest funding is in addition to the annual Government contribution of £10 million to the covenant fund.

I welcome the funding announcement, but the veterans community in Bury needs more support. There is currently very little provided for them. Since my election to this House, I have been working with other leaders in the borough, with the council and with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly), to try to bring our own veterans hub to the town of Bury. We are proud of our military heritage; we are a regimental town, looking after the Lancashire Fusiliers. The veterans hub would seek to deliver housing and employment skills, further education, family support and health and wellbeing.

I have visited numerous veterans hub operations across the surrounding areas, and I pay tribute to the services in Wigan and also in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham). The positive impact that a local veterans hub can have is clear to everyone. Can the Minister tell me what we can do to ensure that veterans receive the support that they need, no matter where they live, and what funding would be available from the MOD to help set up a veterans hub locally in Bury? We must reaffirm our fundamental promise that, just as the military leaves no one behind on the battlefield, we will leave no veteran behind when they come home.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) and an honour to speak in this debate in Armed Forces Week and on Reserves Day, especially because I am proud to have the Royal Marine Reserve headquarters in my constituency. Ahead of Reserves Day, I visited them last week and was able to thank them personally for their service. They put in a hard day’s work all over the country, then travel to their reservist centre to train for the Royal Marines, no less. They offer amazing service to our country, and I am very proud of them and grateful to them.

There is much to welcome in the Bill, which will support our armed forces personnel and their families. I echo the words of colleagues on both sides of the House in recognising and celebrating the work of our armed forces and their ongoing efforts to make our country and the world safer. We cannot put a price on safety. Only when our own safety is compromised, or when we do not have it, do we realise how important it is to us every day. I worked with aid workers in Bosnia during the war, and I have seen the difference it can make to a whole community not to have that safety, so I value it very much.

Our armed forces have had to adapt all their work and all their training at speed during the pandemic, and I commend them for that. I am also thankful for the work they have done to support frontline efforts to tackle the pandemic. They really have stepped up when we have asked them to. It is for this reason that, while I support the aims of the Bill, I think it is a huge missed opportunity and could have gone further. It needs to go further if it is to deliver real improvements to the day-to-day lives of our service personnel and veterans and their families.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

As a fellow member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill could have gone further in addressing mental health provision for veterans, given the fact that they have to wait 37 days to receive a face-to-face appointment for mental health services, compared with the Government’s own target of just 14 days?

[Fleur Anderson]

I agree with my hon. Friend: this Bill could have gone further both in putting all aspects of the covenant fully into law, and in its scope.

The Bill does not fully enshrine the armed forces covenant in law. It seems to absolve central Government from responsibility for delivering the covenant, as has been outlined by my colleagues. It does not make sense to place new responsibilities on a wide range of public bodies, from school governors to local authorities, to deliver the covenant, but not to include central Government. Does the Minister agree that the Government are effectively outsourcing the delivery of these important commitments and also evading their own responsibility on issues such as pensions, social care and mental health services? For that reason, I support amendments 1 to 4. They would place the same legal responsibility to have due regard to the armed forces covenant on central Government and the devolved Administrations and remove that glaring discrepancy.

My second point is that the Bill is just too narrow. Service charities are rightly concerned that this Bill contains nothing specific on issues such as service accommodation, employment, pensions, compensation, social care, criminal justice and immigration. The scope of the legislation must be wide enough to ensure that all areas of potential disadvantage are addressed. Our armed forces personnel and their families should not suffer disadvantage in any area. By setting a legal standard that is below existing voluntary commitments in some areas, the Government risk creating a two-tier covenant and a race to the bottom on services for forces’ communities where we should be providing the gold standard.

The Bill, as it stands, does not cover all the commitments made in the covenant, or all the public bodies responsible for delivering them It contains powers for the Secretary of State to expand these, so why not include them? Will the Minister clarify how and when these powers might be used? These issues are why I am supporting amendment 6 this afternoon.

This Bill does nothing to address the shameful scandal of visa fees for Commonwealth veterans. I know that there is support in all parts of the House for addressing this, so I urge Members to vote for the new clause. The Government’s long-awaited proposals, currently being consulted on, will help just one in 10 Commonwealth veterans. We know what the Commonwealth veterans want, need and deserve for their service, so why not just put it in the Bill? The proposed changes do not apply to family members of those who have served or who have been medically discharged, meaning that it will help only a minority of those affected.

Commonwealth service personnel have contributed an enormous amount to our national defence. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Extortionate visa fees have left non-UK veterans facing financial ruin and feeling abandoned by the country for which they have potentially laid down their lives. They have served with courage and distinction, and we thank them and then do not give them the rights that they deserve. The Government’s long-overdue proposals are insulting to those personnel and will continue to prevent non-UK veterans from living in the country for which they have fought. Moreover, the proposals will reduce retention and recruitment rates, as has been outlined.

Under new clause 7, Commonwealth and Gurkha veterans who have served four years would pay cost price—they would pay just over £200 instead of £2,389 for an indefinite leave to remain application. Those with families will have to pay nearly £10,000 to apply for a right to remain. We did not ask them for that when they potentially laid down their life for us and for our country. We ask far too much of them, and put far too high a barrier for the indefinite leave to remain application. This is a move that the Royal British Legion and organisations such as Citizenship for Soldiers have long campaigned for, and I pay my respect to them both for their campaigns and for speaking up for so many people. I urge all hon. Members to support the new clause.

The Government like to talk up their support for our service communities, and rightly so, but they are not delivering. It is time for Ministers to deliver the promises of the covenant in full for every member of our armed forces, veterans and their families. I often think that our armed forces personnel lose out because they are not allowed to wear their military uniform out and about, and I absolutely understand the reasons for that. None the less, in countries such as America, armed forces personnel are thanked everywhere they go. They are given special treatment and respect for their service to their country, and rightly so. But our armed forces personnel often do not feel that respect; they cannot because they cannot wear their uniform. The covenant goes a long way to saying how much we respect our armed forces personnel and their families, but it could go a bit further to achieve that. The Opposition’s reasonable and constructive amendments are designed to get the very best for our forces from this legislation, so I urge hon. Members from all sides of the House to support the amendments.