Armed Forces

Debate between Jim McGovern and Mark Francois

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman told us earlier about the renaming of a local square, which I think is very appropriate. He also referred to something that had been mentioned earlier by the shadow Secretary of State. [Interruption.] Give me a moment, and I may be able to say something more. My understanding is that people who have left the armed forces are already perfectly at liberty to join a trade union, but the one mentioned by the hon. Gentleman is clearly an additional union that they can join if they wish.

We have focused intensively on the provision of health care for our service personnel. We have a duty to provide those who put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf with the very best health care and support. I have taken a strong personal interest in the issue. Since I took up my post some nine months ago, I have visited the Defence Medical Services headquarters in Whittington, the Role 3 hospital at Camp Bastion, the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Queen Elizabeth hospital, Birmingham, the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court, the Battle Back Centre at Lilleshall—which uses sporting activity to improve recovery—the personnel recovery centres at Tedworth House and Colchester, the residential care centre run by Combat Stress at Tyrwhitt House in Leatherhead, and New Belvedere House, the Veterans Aid hostel in Limehouse in the east end of London. I hope the House will accept that I have been able to see for myself that real progress has already been made.

The Government have announced the provision of an additional £6.5 million to ensure that next-generation microprocessor prosthetics—the so-called bionic legs—are available to injured serving personnel with above-the-knee and through-the-knee amputations when that is clinically appropriate. Those new legs are being fitted now. In his report, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), recommended that a small number of multi-disciplinary centres should provide specialist prosthetic and rehabilitation services to ensure that veterans have access to the same high-quality care that the armed forces provide, and the Government have committed £6.7 million over the next two years to ensure that nine such NHS facilities are funded to provide that service.

We have also made advances in the field of mental health. The signing of a strategic partnership by the MOD, the four national health agencies, including those of the devolved Administrations, and Combat Stress ensures that we will all work collaboratively to support the psychological needs of the armed forces community.

There is shared MOD and Department of Health funding of the Big White Wall website. Serving personnel, veterans and their families are allowed to join the site anonymously if they wish, and it provides innovative, patient-centred support for those who may need it. Our armed forces can also draw on a process called trauma risk management, or TRiM. This is a peer group support system, developed by 3 Commando Brigade, that is helping to identify those who may be at risk of mental health problems and provide support to them. In addition, as troops go through their decompression period in Cyprus on return from operations, they are provided with briefings, including specifically on mental health. That is particularly helping to tackle the stigma associated with mental health issues.

There has also been an uplift in the number of NHS mental health professionals providing veteran-focused mental health services. Working in partnership with Combat Stress, we now have around 50 professionals in place—more than the 30 originally recommended by the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire, in his “Fighting Fit” report.

In addition, in terms of our obligation to provide wider, non-clinical support to the wounded, injured and sick, there was a landmark achievement earlier this month when the defence recovery capability reached its full operating capability. The DRC provides members of our armed forces with a tailored and holistic support package to help them readjust and recover from injury or illness, helping to make sure they are provided with the best care available. The Government have contributed a quarter of a billion pounds for that purpose, but this would not have been possible without the very significant contribution from service charities, in particular the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. This has been the largest single donation ever made by military charities, and we welcome it and the fact that that whole capability has now gone live.

The shadow Secretary of State raised the subject of education. We take pride in the fact that our armed forces provide challenging and constructive education and training opportunities for young people, equipping them with valuable and transferable skills. The services are among the largest training providers in the UK, with excellent completion and achievement rates, and the quality of our training and education is highly respected.

With support for education ranging from entry-level literacy and numeracy to full postgraduate degrees, service personnel are offered genuine progression routes which allow them to develop, gain qualifications and play a fuller part in society either in the armed forces or in the civilian world. We raise literacy and numeracy achievement progressively through a soldier’s career up to level 2—equivalent to GCSE grades A to C. Our basic training establishments are inspected by Ofsted, which has rated most of them good or better. The MOD works closely both with BIS, through its Skills Funding Agency, to support skills development, and with an extensive range of colleges and other providers to deliver the education that its soldiers need.

The Army also enrols more than 95% of soldiers on an apprenticeship or advanced apprenticeship, with an achievement rate of almost 90%, the majority achieved within two years of enlistment. This is one of the largest employer-based apprenticeship programmes in the UK, encompassing over 35 different types of scheme or apprenticeship, and was most recently recognised by Ofsted as good. In the latest academic year, there were over 10,000 apprenticeship completions by armed forces personnel. I am sure the whole House will welcome that. Studying in the workplace and doing relevant contextualised learning has been shown to be very effective, particularly for some who did not have positive experiences at school.

In addition, the Troops to Teachers programme offers a route for ex-service personnel to qualify as teachers and bring military values to the classroom. This is an excellent example of people taking values and experience they have learnt in the armed forces into the classroom and transferring them to our young people. There has been a successful pilot scheme, which is now being rolled out more widely across the country, particularly from the beginning of the new academic year in September.

The right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire mentioned legislation to deal with the disrespecting of service personnel in public. He may recall a private Member’s Bill debate on the issue involving the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to achieve, although at the risk of chiding him gently, I would remind him that the previous Labour Government looked at exactly the same issue and rejected legislating on it. It would therefore appear that there has been something of a change of heart by Labour. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman attempts to intervene from a sedentary position, but I did give a commitment when I debated this issue with the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife on that Friday that we would examine it in the context of the armed forces covenant report 2013, and that commitment will be honoured. I just make the point that the Labour party considered whether to legislate on this issue a few years ago and decided not to do so.

On legislation on reserves, the right hon. Gentleman has similarly sought to float the idea of anti-discrimination legislation for employers. As a number of hon. Members have pointed out, to make the growth of the reserves succeed it is important to carry employers with us and make maximum use of their good will. Threatening them with legislation from the outset may not be the best way to do that, but he will have to wait to see what we say in the White Paper, where we do refer to the issue.

Let me say something about the situation post-2014 and then I will seek to bring my remarks to a close so that others can speak. The current level of backing for service charities is testament to the British public’s support for our armed forces. They understand that they have been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade, but that is changing. Afghan security forces are now assuming control of their own security, which represents a real milestone in our progress towards ending combat operations in Afghanistan. We are starting to bring our people back home, and they are rightly being welcomed as heroes as they return. This moment represents an opportunity. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) mentioned the possibility of more clearly encapsulating the services we provide for veterans. We have work ongoing in the Department to do exactly that, and I hope to be able to say more in the months ahead.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

We have rightly talked up how we deal with health care, housing and so on for veterans. What about soldiers in the Army who want to remain in it but have been told they are being made redundant? On Monday I had a call on my voicemail in my office from my constituent Mr John Bisset, who told me that his son has served for 16 years in the Black Watch but has now been told he will be made redundant next year. How do we deal with that? How do we justify it?

[Mr Francois]

We have had to take some extremely difficult decisions, and although I do not wish to spoil the bipartisan nature of this debate, the hon. Gentleman will know what lay behind many of them: the very difficult financial situation we inherited in the Ministry of Defence. Having made that point, I will not dwell on it. From memory, just over 60% of those affected in tranche 1 were applicants who had applied for redundancy, the tranche 2 figure was just over 70% and I believe the figure for tranche 3 was 84%, so a larger proportion of those in tranche 3 have applied to go voluntarily. However, we do realise that these are very difficult decisions and we provide support for all those leaving as redundees via the Career Transition Partnership, which has a very good track record of getting people into employment within six months or so of their leaving the forces. When people do leave the forces, we therefore do everything we can to support them, but I say again that we had to take some very difficult decisions because of what we were bequeathed.

Let me return to the point I was making about the post-2014 situation. As we shift from a period of operations to one of contingency, we cannot and must not take the public’s support for our armed forces for granted. We need to put in place now processes and procedures that will endure well beyond the end of operations in 2014 to harness all that public support and put it to maximum good use. In that respect, we have been having detailed discussions with the business community on how best to co-ordinate and maximise its support for the armed forces. We hope to have more to say about that in the very near future, and given that the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire has said that when we do the right thing he will support us, I hope we will enjoy his support for what we are going to do with business for our armed forces in the months and years ahead.

The role of reserves in our defence is vital. Since 2003, there have been more than 25,000 mobilisations of reservists, serving alongside their regular counterparts, and 30 have paid the ultimate price in the service of their country. In the future, the reserves will be a fully integrated component of the armed forces and reserve elements will routinely be required on most military operations.