Veterans Care Sector: Government Role

Debate between Johnny Mercer and Simon Hoare

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

Absolutely; I should be delighted to have a look at that.

In the current political landscape, I fear that the can of veterans care has received another good punt down the road in the wake of Brexit. I strongly welcome and support the new Prime Minster, who is supremely equipped to tackle a job which, from my position, looks almost impossible—that of managing my party and granulating the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. I could not wish her more strength to her arm in these challenges, and I will support her to a fault, as she well knows. I believe that we achieve nothing on our own in politics, and the strength to tackle the challenges ahead is in the team on the Conservative Benches.

However, I must confess myself to be disappointed at first sight on this single issue. In July I challenged the Prime Minister in the leadership campaign, in front of my entire party, about her commitment to this agenda and her willingness to look at a new Government Department—or something similar—to finally match our words with our deeds when it comes to the 2.6 million veterans in this country. Her response was that she was not keen to restructure Government and create any new Departments beyond a Department for Exiting the European Union, which I entirely understood. The House can imagine my concerns over the summer about where veterans care ranked on her agenda, as she subsequently re-ordered Government to face the challenges ahead which, as I mention frequently, I entirely support, but she chose not to include this cause too.

I was further concerned that the veterans care agenda was being diluted when the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster), had his veterans care duties spread even more thinly with the addition of the reserves brief to his work—an increasingly enormous challenge as the military reconfigures its relationship with the reserves heading into 2020. For me this was a clear movement in the opposite direction to that which we were pursuing, which did not go unnoticed by those who strive to deliver this country’s duty to those who serve.

That is the current position—ever-increasing demand, a general and understandable decline in interest in this agenda now that the wounds of war are not visible on those flying back from Iraq or Afghanistan every week, and a Government challenged by unprecedented political demands.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I note what my hon. Friend says about the fading of memory, but when my constituent Robert de Ferry Foster came to see me at an advice surgery the other week, it was clear that the legacy of the injuries he sustained in Iraq are with him every day. He talked about sustainability, which my hon. Friend has spoken about as well, but he also spoke about the need for simplicity—a simple, transparent system for those who have served and sustained potentially life-threatening and very life-impacting injuries. They need a far simpler way of gathering the support and help to which they are legitimately entitled.

[Johnny Mercer]

I entirely agree, and I will come to the four principles, of which that is one, that should underlie veterans care. It is not a case of veterans being entitled to that care; we owe it to them and we must deliver it.

That is why I seek leave again to challenge the Minister on the Floor of the House and to challenge this Government to fulfil their duty to those who do our bidding from this House. I know that it can be a little tedious watching or listening to me keeping on about this agenda. I am not naive about that, but I cannot stop. I do not do it because I have nothing else to do. I do not do it because there are particularly good career prospects in this line of work, or because there is some sort of intangible crowd that I am playing to out there. I do it for the one simple thing that drove so many of us in the past decade and a half to conduct unpopular wars on this nation’s behalf, miles from home and often from the public eye.

I refer to that one word which I remember compelling the marine at the front of my patrol to do his duty, refusing any relief from those duties—in his case seeking out improvised explosive devices day after day for seven long months. I refer to that thing which makes a young officer calmly accept his fate with the words, “Lads, I’m going down,” rather than lose his composure in the heat of battle as he died in front of his men. I do not seek to lecture my esteemed colleagues in government, but it is my duty to those men to keep up this fight, and the sacrifice I make in doing this is so entirely insignificant compared to theirs that I feel I must keep going until we match what we say as a Government from that Dispatch Box with what it feels like for our men and women who serve.

I applaud the Government’s efforts on this agenda, but they are not enough— nowhere near enough. I have no doubt that this Minster and his staff work night and day trying to deliver this agenda, but he can only work with the resource and priorities that he is given by the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister.