Oral Answers to Questions
Josh Babarinde Excerpts(4 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Luke Pollard
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right about the terrible state of armed forces retention that we inherited. We have seen armed forces morale drop from 60% in 2010 to just 40% last July. We need to invest more in our armed forces, which is why we have introduced the biggest pay rise in 20 years and why we are bringing defence housing back under public control, so that it can be invested in. It is also why we are creating the Armed Forces Commissioner, who will provide an independent champion for service welfare matters for those who serve. We do need to invest more, which is why my ministerial colleagues and I have created an armed forces recruitment and retention board within the MOD to focus efforts on improving service life for all those who serve and their families.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
The Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns)
As I mentioned earlier, we are moving forward with our women and girls taskforce to drive progress on the Government’s commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Last year, we launched the Ministry of Defence’s domestic abuse action plan and trained more than 700 service police in specialist domestic abuse and coercive control training, and now everybody in the military—every man and woman across the armed forces—goes through unacceptable sexual behaviour training.
Josh Babarinde
According to King’s College London, one in 10 of our armed forces personnel is a survivor of domestic abuse, but, because there is no specific offence of domestic abuse in the law, the Ministry of Justice has confirmed that it cannot comprehensively identify perpetrators, and cannot therefore comprehensively rehabilitate them and keep victims and survivors safe. Will the Minister join me and colleagues across the House in campaigning for a specific offence of domestic abuse in the law so that we can better protect our armed forces personnel from domestic abuse?
Al Carns
It is completely clear to me that any sort of domestic abuse in any way, shape or form in the armed forces is completely unacceptable. If we can help to address and track some of that through the armed forces, it will make it far easier to deal with and ensure rehabilitation. I will take this conversation on after these questions.
Remembrance and Veterans
Josh Babarinde Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
It is an honour to pay tribute to our armed forces community this evening, and it is particularly special to be able to pay tribute to my late great-grandfather, Flight Lieutenant Thomas Gittins. He was a tool salesman who joined the RAF Reserves in the hopes of becoming a pilot. He was pretty small in stature, so he was never allowed to get near the cockpit. He fell at the first hurdle, despite being almost small enough to walk under it. He did, however, join 196 Squadron as a rear gunner in Wellington and Lancaster bombers, and between 1940 and 1945 he completed 51 missions, including towing gliders to transport soldiers to Normandy on D-Day. For his service he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, which was pretty rare for folk serving in his position.
Like so many war heroes, my great-grandfather was intensely humble about his grand achievements. He was too humble to say that his bravery contributed to the preservation of our democracy, and to accept that his service meant that Members of Parliament, including his great-grandson down the line, could stand up here for our country. As with many war heroes, the atrocity of war took its toll on his mental health as he transitioned back to civilian life. Today, we recognise those challenges as combat stress.
Thanks to so many volunteers across my wonderful constituency of Eastbourne—the sunniest in the UK—local veterans have access to more support than ever, including through our Royal British Legion branch, chaired by Alan Leith, who I recruited as my driving instructor. He is supported in chairing the RBL in Eastbourne by his fab secretary, Daphne Geninazza. I have also had the chance to meet inspirational veterans such as Eric Deach and Brian Perry, who is known as the formidable poppy salesman at the Tesco in the Admiral Way retail park in St Anthony’s. There is also local support in the form of the brilliant Eastbourne and District Veterans Association; I was proud to lead on its incorporation as a community interest company.
I pay tribute to the wonderful Barry and Petra Coase and their dog Bella, who are involved with the charity Combat Stress, which supports veterans locally, and to the Blue Van drop-in group. We all need to go even further to support our armed forces, and I am delighted to speak up for them today.