Armed Forces Covenant Annual Report

Johnny Mercer Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) for the opportunity to speak in this debate. There can be no doubt about the growth in relevance of the armed forces covenant at this crucial time at the end of conventional combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have been at war in the public eye for some time. It is now critical that we get things right and put veterans’ care on a sustainable footing, thereby ensuring that they receive the very best levels of care, as is our duty.

Over Christmas, I read the Ministry of Defence report into the armed forces covenant and was heartened by much of what I read. Nevertheless, it would be disingenuous of me not to report what I have seen and felt, not only in Plymouth but throughout the country, which is in some cases a little different from what is in the report. The covenant’s core principle is that no one should be disadvantaged as a result of service. However, the truth is that servicemen and women are finding that the support they have come to rely on in the military falls away when they become veterans. There is, if one likes, a support cliff, of which there is clear evidence. One example of many is the Chavasse report by Professor Tim Briggs, which focuses on the unique needs of those with complex musculoskeletal injuries who are being discharged by the MOD or the Defence Medical Services into an NHS system that cannot entirely address their needs.

We have heard a lot of examples today, which I do not wish to repeat. My comments on the military covenant will be more holistic and strategic. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning a story that came out in the summer, when we were in recess. Clive Smith, who served in Afghanistan, found himself having to remortgage his house so that he could walk again. While he was serving in the military, his prosthetics care gave him four years of freedom, but when he left he found himself falling directly off the support cliff. Fed up with feeling disadvantaged, Clive reacted in the traditional Army fashion by finding the solution in a trip to Australia for controversial treatment to directly fix sockets to his upper legs—so-called osseointegration. LIBOR funding has just been approved for limited trials of the procedure to start in the United Kingdom, but Clive is fed up and his faith in the system has been lost. That he should feel that way after sacrificing so much for our nation is simply unacceptable. If the covenant is working, we need to ask why that is happening.

There are plenty of examples like that, but, as I said, I want to keep my comments brief and offer a more strategic and holistic view of the military covenant across the service community. I will be as brief as I can in trying to highlight a couple of key issues that need attention.

[Mrs Moon]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in asking the Minister to look in particular at continence support and care. Those who have high lower-limb blast damage often suffer continence problems. I wonder whether that can be looked at.

[Johnny Mercer]

rose—

[Mr David Hanson (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a Division in the House, so the sitting is suspended. We will return in 15 minutes’ time when Mr Graham Brady will take the Chair. Mr Mercer should be back in time to ensure he can continue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

The sitting is now resumed and may continue until 4.45 pm.

[Johnny Mercer]

To pick up where I left off, we have heard a lot of examples today, and such examples are sometimes helpful and sometimes unhelpful, but I want to focus on broadbrush, strategic views of the military covenant across the service community—not only my own views, but those of a plethora of friends who remain in post. I will be as brief as I can as I try to highlight a couple of key areas.

There is a key problem with the corporate covenant in our large companies, and this was identified in the report, which is great. There is an appetite among our chief executives and business leaders—I have seen this—to support Government efforts to implement the corporate covenant. It is really important that we have that big company buy-in and agreement to what we are trying to do, but getting the information to the shop floor—the interface between our servicemen and women and these bigger companies—where it really matters, so that veterans receive the benefits associated with the military covenant, is, unfortunately, another matter entirely.

As I say, the issue is covered in the report, but I want to add to what the report says, not just repeat it. I want to do that because this issue was raised 12 months ago, but, unfortunately, little change can be seen. The point is really important because if we make a big public show of signing up large companies to the covenant, but the effects are not felt in the armed forces and in the veterans’ community, that can increase the feeling of tokenism that can so often be associated, rightly or wrongly, with such schemes. I will touch on that briefly at the end of my comments.

Another key area that really matters to our servicemen and women and to our veterans’ community is financial disadvantage. That is the subject of an ongoing project in the MOD, but it cannot be right that British Forces Post Office numbers are still not recognised by some companies, meaning that some service overseas personnel do not have three years of continuous residence, for example. That continues to cause them real and significant problems when they access certain financial products in this country.

On another financial issue, I noted with interest in the report the fact that some mobile phone companies are allowing soldiers to pause their contracts while they complete service overseas. I would suggest that that is a very modest step, and not really one to hang our hat on, because I was able to do that as far back as 2007. It is important that we recognise the small steps, but they must be set in perspective, given the challenge of ensuring that we meet the Prime Minister’s commitment to people facing “no disadvantage” due to their military service.

For me, that strikes at the very heart of the challenge of implementing the military covenant. Reading the report, there is no doubt that significant progress has been made. However, while some soldiers are required to look abroad for care and to fund their recovery personally, while some still struggle to access the myriad brilliant veterans’ service providers in the third sector, and while it is only in the last 12 months that we have begun to see a slightly better transition of medical records from the military to civilian GPs, the Government must see this report in context, and set it against the increasing demand and the narrowing timeframe, if they are to get this subject right.

There is no doubt that the military covenant has been a step forward on the part of the Government in how we look after our servicemen and women, and I welcome that. However, it remains without teeth and without enforcement, and we expect servicemen and women and veterans to enforce the spirit and will of it themselves, so it is, unfortunately, felt in some areas of the country to be empty promises.

We are at a critical juncture in how we look after our servicemen and women and our veterans’ community. Some have long spoken of the need to get this issue right, and many of us will remain forever indebted to those noble individuals who have stepped up and delivered veterans’ care in the charity sector simply because that needed to be done. However, if we are to put veterans’ care on a sustainable basis, now is the time to deliver. In five years, it will be too late; the problem will be too large, and the recent conflicts will be forgotten.

How we look after our servicemen and women and their families is a mark of how professional we see them as and how seriously we take our military in these globally unsettling times. Looking after those who have been prepared to sacrifice so much is a crucial and full part of combat operations; indeed, it is of equal importance to the other parts.

When it comes to finance, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have channelled millions into the sector. We owe it to them and to the country to make sure that the existing finance is sweated accordingly. I understand that we live in times of financial restraint, and that is a common objection to reform. I take this opportunity to remind the Government, however, that if we can afford to conduct operations abroad, we can afford to look after our people when they return; if we cannot afford to look after those who do our bidding, we must not send them. This is that important.

Next Tuesday, I will be reacting to an important study by King’s College London into the scale of the problem we face in meeting our veterans’ needs. On the back of that, I will release a report I have written in partnership with others calling for the total reform of the way we look after veterans’ care. Such reform is necessary if we are successfully to meet their needs, as is our duty.

The aims of that reform are bold but simple. It seeks to eradicate gaps in the veterans’ care system. It seeks no fear or favour from any of our brilliant charity sector service providers or, indeed, the Government, who have done more than any before them to get this right. It is simply an objective attempt to reconfigure services around the user and to ensure that the Government play their part in delivering what is a function of operations—looking after those who serve.

The Government’s report is encouraging, and it makes wide reference to what is going into the arena of military support, but, critically, it fails to provide any meaningful statistical reference to the single most important measure of success: what our military community actually got out of this. No one seems to be tracking that against a common, easy-to-grasp metric, and there is no user-focused data on what the beneficiary community think about what is on offer or on their broader views of the military covenant.

I conclude by asking the Government to pay close attention to the report that King’s College London will release on Tuesday. It would be a good idea to work out how many men and women, along with their families, got the fair second chance Theodore Roosevelt referred to when he said:

“A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.”

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed for securing a debate on this important matter.

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

We now move to the three Front-Bench winding-up speeches. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed can make a brief reply at the end if she would like.