Ex-service Personnel (Psychological Welfare)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Sheridan]

I am not aware of the precise details, but I am extremely disappointed to hear that. I am sure that the Minister will address that when he gets the opportunity.

My right hon. colleague, the Minister for the Armed Forces, has said that he

“takes the issue of mental health very seriously, and we recognise that operational deployments will inevitably expose personnel to stressful experiences.”—[Official Report, 12 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 447W.]

Similarly, when he was a Health Minister, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), claimed that the coalition Government

“considers the health and wellbeing of…armed forces personnel, veterans and their families to be a top priority.”—[Official Report, 18 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 801W.]

I agree with these sentiments, as I am sure we all do. Those veterans have put their lives on the line so that we can be safe. They have done a great service for their country and they deserve the top service from their country in return. So why then do the actions of Ministers not speak louder than their words? Their statements are commendable, but their funding commitments are not. I am calling today for more public funding to be directed to the issue and for the psychological well-being of our veterans to be considered a top priority.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the great work done by charitable organisations —for instance, SSAFA Forces Help, the Army Benevolent Fund, the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes and many others. Would it be more constructive if the Government were to work with those charitable organisations to address the problem?

[Jim Sheridan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I will come to that important aspect.

It is important that we tackle the issue now as we are only a few years away from it becoming more serious. The Prime Minister confirmed at the end of November that the combat mission in Afghanistan will end in 2014. With this will come the return of thousands of troops who have been serving abroad so that we can remain safe in our own country. Combat Stress estimates that 7,600 of the 191,000 personnel who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan could develop PTSD, and that 37,600 are suffering from other disorders, such as depression, mood disorders and anxiety. It could be up to 13 years before the problems reveal themselves, so work done now in this area could prove invaluable 10 to 15 years down the line.

However, we should not be alarmist. Most British military personnel do not suffer any mental health problems while in service or afterwards. We also cannot be certain that the numbers of personnel suffering from mental health issues are disproportionate to the population as a whole. There are conflicting views on this. I have spoken to Veterans Aid, which says that there is no problem with ex-service personnel care, yet PTSD Resolution, a charity that gives counselling to veterans, talks about a much larger problem that is not currently acknowledged. The Royal British Legion anticipates a growing number of problems due to the rebalancing of the armed forces towards reservists.

With more and more armed forces coming back from Afghanistan, the possibly low estimate of 4% of personnel with probable PTSD, 19.7% with other mental disorders and 13% with unhealthy relationships with alcohol will become a much larger problem. I say possibly low estimate because the United States’ estimates of its defence personnel with PTSD range from 12% to 20%. Whether our figures are low or not, all personnel suffering from PTSD and other mental health issues deserve the highest quality post-deployment support services.

I find it a huge cause for concern that these services are at present undertaken, by and large, by charities. They rely on the generosity of the public and in the current environment, where donations to charities are down by 20%, according to the Office for National Statistics, we cannot go on in this way. Let me provide some examples. The Big White Wall online support network is propped up by a £100,000 commitment from Help for Heroes. That is almost a third of its total funding. Combat Stress, a veterans charity, is currently supporting over 5,000 veterans aged from 20 to 101 and it says it

“simply couldn’t do what we do without the generosity of the great British public.”

PTSD Resolution provides counselling to UK veterans, with a 78% success rate, but gets no recognition for its work from the MOD. Erskine hospital in my constituency provides vital care to veterans suffering from mental health issues, among others, and relies on donations to cover a large part of the £7 million a year that it needs to keep going.

It is unfortunate that those charities have to rely on fundraising to undertake work that provides a lifeline to those suffering after service. Veterans are clearly not a priority for this Government; they were not for the previous Government either. They are a priority for the charities, but it is a sad fact that in our society it is charities that are caring for our war wounded. More funding should be directed to the psychological welfare of ex-service personnel, and it should come from the public purse.

The funding issue will only get worse. The Government are planning to double the number of reservists, from 15,000 to 30,000, by 2018. That raises a key question, because reserve personnel are more likely than regular soldiers to suffer from PTSD. Therefore, we need a strategy for the future to tackle that invisible consequence of service.

Funding has been allocated for those brave personnel, but we do not know whether any of it will cover increased mental health provision. I have a few precise questions about the Government’s plans to care for those additional members of the armed forces, who take on the responsibility alongside their day jobs. Since reservists are going to be more exposed to the front line, will there be a change to the pre-deployment training to reflect that, and will there be any additional provision for reservists and their families?

On that point, let me underline the importance of including families in any post-deployment care. PTSD and other mental health problems do not have individual victims; their effects permeate the lives of sufferers’ friends and family, and often that effect is overlooked. It is perhaps more pertinent for reservists, as they return to environments where their experience is not particularly well understood. They can find it hard to readjust to civilian life, and their friends and family find it hard to see the person they loved change into someone new.

As an MP with a long history of standing up for rights in the workplace, I am also interested to hear how reservists’ rights will be protected. Will the Minister be looking to change post-deployment rest and recuperation, given that it is a key factor, cited by many experts, for why they do not recover? That seems a sensible suggestion to help mitigate the effects of traumatic experiences in the field. If that was the case, how much extra time away from work would that imply? Will reservists be given guarantees by the Government that their involvement will not hinder their job applications or relationships with employers?

Reservists, as with all other armed forces personnel, make a great sacrifice for their country and should not be penalised for that. They face specific issues on return, such as a lack of understanding from friends and family and more open criticism of the war in Iraq. They are also usually called upon to fill gaps in the regulars, becoming out of sync with the rest of their unit and, therefore, lacking the comradeship that can be such an important part of service. As such, they should be given the proper prevention and intervention strategies they need to readjust to civilian life and prevent any mental health issues from manifesting themselves.

I am sure that the Minister agrees with me on many of these issues. He might be searching desperately in his limited budget for spare cash to spend on mental health care for veterans. Perhaps I can help him in that regard. We have called for deeper cuts to the number of one-star officers and those above, the highest paid, in order to correct the top-heavy imbalance across our services. I am not usually in favour of redundancy policies, but the number of the most senior officers in the MOD has risen by a third since 1990. We have more admirals than ships. We have a higher number of officers across all three services than do the French and US air, maritime and land forces. Although 20% of more junior ranks look set to lose their jobs, just one in 20 of the most senior officers in all three services have been made redundant. The money spent employing senior officers could be much better spent helping to ease the burden of veterans’ charities. The £1 million could be spent on a fund that would focus research on mental health issues and charities could bid for funds to support their own policy research.

It is estimated that by 2020 1.8 million people in the armed forces community will be living with a long-standing illness. I have spent much of my political career fighting for people who have been injured or made ill as a result of their job. Serving in a combat zone where their life is constantly imperilled places unique burdens on our service personnel. It is imperative that the Government recognise the need to ensure that our armed forces are afforded not only the best physical care but the best mental health care while serving and after returning to civilian life. We cannot rely on charities to do this vital work any longer. I sincerely hope that this debate has managed to bring some of the issues to the table, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s plans to ensure the mental well-being of our respected veterans.

Finally, it would be inappropriate in the context of this debate not to mention the Christmas Island veterans, who are still looking for compensation after almost 40 years. I hope that the Minister will say something about them as well.