Armed Forces Covenant
Debate between Julian Lewis and Madeleine Moon(5 years, 12 months ago)
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Dr Lewis
Heaven forbid.
Other matters deserved equal attention today. We have heard about the legal hounding of Northern Ireland veterans and other veterans of different campaigns; that is an ongoing matter. Also, at some point it would be right for the House to consider the Home Office’s failure to allocate sufficient British passports to veterans of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps and the Royal Navy. That injustice needs to be rectified. However, as I said, in the time available to me today I will concentrate on war widows, and I will do so slightly unusually—in their own words.
First, I remind the House of the terms of the covenant itself, which the Minister read out. The words relevant to my remarks are the following:
“the whole nation has a moral obligation to the members of the Naval Service, the Army and the Royal Air Force, together with their families… Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most, such as the injured and the bereaved.”
Back in May, I had the pleasure of meeting Judith Thompson, the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors. We discussed the plight of 200 to 300 war widows who lost their war widow’s pension and did not have it reinstated when others were more fortunate.
I see the hon. Member for Bridgend has just taken her place. Sadly, she missed the tribute paid to her achievement in becoming president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, but she is here to hear me reiterate it. I hope she will contribute to the debate.
Dr Lewis
I am glad to see that she will—very good. We look forward to that.
Very recently—it arrived a few days before last week’s debate, which is why I was so anxious that the matter be flagged up—Judith sent me something I had asked for in the course of our conversation: a concise summary of the situation and some personal recollections and reflections by individual war widows. I intend to put those on the record today.
First, the summary. This is how the commissioner spells out the situation:
“If your spouse died or left Military or War Service before 31 March 1973 and you also receive the War Pension Scheme Supplementary Pension you keep your War Widow’s Pension for life. If you were widowed after 5 April 2005 and receive Survivors Guaranteed Income Payment from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme you keep your War Widow’s Pension for life.
From 1st April 2015 if your spouse died, left Military or War Service after 31 March 1973 and before 5 April 2005 and you were in receipt of a War Widow’s Pension on that 1st April 2015, you keep your War Widow’s Pension for life. However, if your spouse died or left Military or War Service after 31 March 1973 and before 5 April 2005, and you remarried or co-habited you were required to surrender your War Pension or Compensation; to date this group do not receive their War Pension or compensation.”
There is an anomaly, which is that if a person who was unlucky enough to fall outside the appropriate date range were now to divorce their other half, their husband or wife, the pension would be reinstated, and if they were then to remarry the very same person, the pension would not be taken away. That is, frankly, bonkers. It is basically creating a perverse incentive on people who, by definition, have already suffered trauma and tragedy to part from the person with whom they have found renewed happiness and go through a charade of this sort if they wish to have the pension permanently reinstated.
Mrs Madeleine Moon
I wish to thank the Chairman of the Select Committee, particularly for the leadership he gives those of us who serve on that Committee. The more he reads out, the more it becomes absolutely clear that Governments are happy to write names on memorials and to make soundbites in this Chamber, but they are not willing to allow the country to maintain its financial commitment and promises to war widows and their children to mitigate for their lost life. As parliamentarians, should we not take that into our hands, perhaps as the Committee, by putting forward a private Member’s Bill?
Dr Lewis
That is a wonderful idea, and it is exactly the sort of constructive suggestion I would expect from the hon. Lady. I suspect that at the root of this situation is probably not a flaw in the Ministry of Defence, but a problem being raised by people from the Treasury saying, “If we do something for this group, we’ll have to do something for another group. We will be opening some sort of Pandora’s box.” And so on and so on. I say, frankly: if that is the argument, they should hang their heads in shame.
Although I think I have already made the point quite forcefully, I intend, if I may, to read out two or three more of these extracts, so that the point cannot be escaped, because every one of these stories has a different dimension. I hope that is acceptable. If I start to see urgent signals from those on the Front Bench when I really need to get a move on—[Interruption.] I am getting a few of them now, so I shall do this as concisely as possible.
I come to the case of Margaret, whose first husband, William, was a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment. He was murdered—blown up—in 1986. She says:
“At the time we didn’t know if we would even be able to have William’s coffin open due the extent of injuries…in the end all we could see was his face, with a wee cut just above his right eye. No one has ever been convicted of William’s murder.
She talks about the “rituals” that they always had to go through for their own security, and the circumstances in which what happened took place. She continues:
“I am now happily remarried to my second husband, John and we have two sons. When I married my second husband John in 1993 I automatically lost my pension. To me this was highly unfair, as older widows and now younger widows have got to keep their pensions, what is the difference, between widows like them and me? I have endured the same trials and tribulations as them.
I detest writing this letter and find it extremely difficult, to me it’s like a begging letter, yes I have endured financial hardships in the past and if my pension was reinstated it would mean a lot to me financially, it would be extremely useful for my two sons’ further education and for repairs to our home. But, to me, it would be some acknowledgement from the Government that they realise and appreciate that William laid down his life for his country and for our people, and that although I have remarried I still bear the scars of the past.”
The final extract I will read, given the unexpected time pressure—I hope the other ladies will forgive me—is from Eileen, whose husband David served part-time in the UDR and was murdered in 1977. She says:
“I was so proud of my husband and how he sacrificed his life to try to keep to his community safe at nights and weekends. When he was on duty I waited at home in bed until he arrived safely back home. Those were worrying times for me.
I felt the need to serve my country with pride and also allowed my family to make a positive contribution to maintaining peace and I became a member of the UDR in 1984.”
So this lady, seven years after losing her husband in the defence of her country, joined the same regiment herself. Does that not make us feel proud of her and does it not make us all feel ashamed of the way that she and the other women whose stories I have related today have been treated?
Health, Social Care and Security
Debate between Julian Lewis and Madeleine Moon(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Dr Lewis
I have at least benefited from a few extra seconds as a result.
There is plenty to welcome in this Queen’s Speech, from the prioritisation of mental health to the forthcoming visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, which will give us all a chance to show that our friendship with that great country is as enduring and immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. I will touch, however, on two other aspects of the Queen’s Speech, and they will not come as a surprise to colleagues who know of my areas of speciality.
The first is the reiteration of the Government’s pledge to continue to meet the NATO commitment to spend at least 2% of national income on defence. I am sorry to say that it is not enough. One of the things that the Select Committee on Defence managed to establish, through a great deal of hard work and original research by its professional and dedicated staff, was a comparison over the decades of what happened to defence with a graph showing something very different for other high-spending subjects. We found that in the early 1960s we spent similar sums—about 6% of GDP—on welfare and defence. Now we spend six times as much on welfare as we do on defence. In the mid-1980s we spent similar sums—about 5% of GDP—on education, health and defence. Now we spend two and a half times as much on education and nearly four times as much on health as we do on defence. In every year from 1981 until 1987, at the height of east-west confrontation, we spent between 4.3% and 5.1% of GDP on defence, yet even after the cold war had finished, even as late as the financial year 1995-96, we were spending 3% of GDP on defence—a total that does not include things such as war pensions and Ministry of Defence civil service pensions.
Mrs Moon
I thank the former Chairman of the Select Committee for giving way. He, like me, was at a dinner last night at which it was pointed out that at 2%, without pensions and all the other bizarre add-ons that the Government add to get this country to 2%, France will be spending €56 billion on defence; Germany, when it gets to 2%, will be at €70 billion. We are at £36 billion. How can we hold our heads up high and say that we can defend ourselves with sums like that?
Dr Lewis
The hon. Lady is a staunch defender of everything to do with the defence of this country, and she is absolutely right. It is a measure of the management downwards of our expectations that we are supposed to ring the church bells in triumph at our not falling below the bare minimum that NATO members are supposed to achieve. We really have to rethink this. We really should be looking at 3% of GDP, and not this bare minimum of 2%.
I want to turn mainly to what is said in the Queen’s Speech about the creation of a commission for countering extremism,
“to support the government in stamping out extremist ideology in all its forms, both across society and on the internet, so it is denied a safe space to spread.”
That implies, although it is not explicit, that the new body will be some form of executive agency. I want to hear from the Front Bench that that will be the case, because we are approaching a key point: it looks likely that the territory seized by ISIL/Daesh will be retaken from it. That will rightly be hailed as a considerable achievement, but we need to remember that only a few years ago no one had heard about ISIL/Daesh, and everybody was overwhelmingly concerned with al-Qaeda. It was unusual for a terrorist organisation to seize territory, because by doing that, ISIL/Daesh gave up the advantage of invisibility, which is what most terrorist organisations make maximum use of. However, I venture to suggest that when it has been removed from its territory and its moment has passed, there will be other groups that take its place, perhaps fighting in different areas and perhaps not trying to seize territory. This will go on and on, as long as there is no effective response to the underlying ideology.
This is not the first time that there has been talk of commissions of this sort. Back in 2013, David Cameron had a taskforce on tackling radicalisation and extremism. On that occasion, too, evidence was taken, but I believe that any future successful plan needs to draw on the similar threats that we faced and overcame in the past.
As I said in an earlier intervention, huge agencies were called into existence to counter other totalitarian ideologies. This rather massive book was never really meant to be published. It is called “The Secret History of PWE”. PWE was the Political Warfare Executive, and the book is a classified history of all the work that it did to counter fascist and Nazi ideology. It was published as recently as 2002. Another organisation, the Information Research Department at the Foreign Office, worked on a grand scale to counter the poisonous ideology of Marxism-Leninism.
What we need today is an organisation that is equally wide-ranging, equally proficient, and equally capable of answering the thoughtful interjection of the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on the subject of the vocabulary that we should use—whether we should use the terms “Islamic”, “un-Islamic”, or simply “violent extremism”. We need an agency to do that. Until we have such an agency, and until it operates to scale, groups will continue to crop up to implement the ideology, and we do not want that to happen.
Attempted Suicides (Police Responsibilities)
Debate between Julian Lewis and Madeleine Moon(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mrs Moon
That is the whole tenet of my speech—the hon. Gentleman has stolen some of my best lines. He is correct: there is the lack of the support that police officers, who take on the most difficult job of saving a life, should have—and that the person who has attempted to take their own life should have—in order to ensure that they are not back in the same situation within 24 hours, trying to save a life.
This is not the first time I have raised the issue. On 26 June, I asked the Leader of the House for a debate on
“the responsibility gap faced by British Transport and Home Office police when they find an individual in emotional and mental crisis attempting suicide”.—[Official Report, 26 June 2014; Vol. 583, c. 480.]
Police officers are estimated to spend 40% of their time dealing with mental health problems, including suicide. In their research, Murphy et al acknowledged that 80% of police time is devoted to social services issues rather than to crime prevention.
I am told that considerable work is being done to look at the interaction between police services and the NHS, particularly in sensitive areas relating to mental health. What is clear from the evidence that I have heard is that there is new money and new engagement in mental health; that is happening. Sadly, however, someone giving evidence to the inquiry said, “If I call a meeting to discuss mental health, the room is full. If it’s suicide, nobody wants to know. It’s too difficult.”
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady tell the House whether her research has revealed any increase in the problem since some health service foundation trusts, such as the one that serves Hampshire, closed up to 35% of their acute mental health in-patient beds? With the closure of some units—such as the state-of-the-art Woodhaven unit in my constituency—we have also lost the special facilities that were available to the police to house those who were found in mental distress.
Mrs Moon
I can say that the police increasingly have difficulty finding beds for people who need help and support. Although I cannot comment on the specific situation in Hampshire, the inquiry will reveal whether a suicide prevention action plan is in place and whether there is active engagement with the police in relation to that plan. I hope that that will assist the hon. Gentleman in assessing his local problems and issues.
The role of the police in dealing with mental health issues, mental health crises and suicide is growing. The figures from British Transport police on mental health incidents and suicide are shocking. I appreciate that the Minister will tell me that he has no responsibility for British Transport police, but they have been able to give me the most illuminating breakdown that shows the depth of the problem that we face. For every sexual offence dealt with on the railways, there are 15 mental health incidents, four of which are related to suicide. For every offence of robbery, there are 39 mental health incidents, 10 of which will relate to suicide. For every non-sexual assault, there are two mental health incidents. Last year, there were more calls to British Transport police relating to mental health incidents than there were reports of robbery and assault combined. In fact, British Transport police currently prevent more people from taking their own life every year than there are robberies every year. Those statistics show the size of the problem that we have drifted into.
The British Transport police are not alone in dealing with mental health issues. The Metropolitan police are reporting large increases in the number of people in mental health crisis committing offences deliberately for the purpose of getting into prison, because they believe that they will be safer in a cell than on the streets. At least in prison, they will have access to mental health support. Police say that they are told by local authorities that they are using section 136 powers too regularly, but they do not have any viable alternative to the place of safety that a police cell represents.
The British Journal of Psychiatry reports that in the north-east of England, a total of 205 cases of suicide were identified, 41 of which had a documented contact with the police within three months prior to the suicide while an additional seven cases had impending court appearances. In almost a quarter of suicide cases, the person had been in direct contact with the criminal justice system within the previous three months. Figures taken from the national confidential inquiry into suicides showed that in 24% of suicide cases, the person had been in contact with mental health services within 12 months of their death, compared with 70% who had been in contact with the police.
In my previous Westminster Hall debate on the subject, the former policing Minister told me:
“It is obvious that the police have, and will continue to have, a key role in dealing with mental health issues as they arise.”
That is undoubtedly the case, but is it right for the police always to be the point of engagement for those who are at risk of suicide? Those with mental health issues are three times more likely to be the victim of crime, and half of those with some form of mental ill health experienced a crime in the last year alone. The former policing Minister told me that the police
“are not and cannot replace health professionals. Both types of professionals should be left to do the job that they are best at doing and trained to do”.—[Official Report, 28 November 2013; Vol. 571, c. 161WH.]
Unintentionally, the Minister described what is wrong with the current situation. The police are increasingly replacing mental health professionals.
I am worried by the fact that when a police officer comes into contact with an individual whom they suspect is experiencing a mental health crisis, if that person goes on to take their own life, the officer will be investigated. They are often requested by social services to call on someone who is seen to be at risk, but it is the police officer and not someone from social services who is subject to an internal investigation. Police officers feel particularly aggrieved that they, who have no specialist training in identifying mental ill health, are expected to be accountable should someone with a mental health problem ultimately take their own life.
In my Westminster Hall debate, the former policing Minister spoke positively of the benefits of joint working. Many directors of public health and other suicide prevention professionals have said that the only really successful approach to the issue is multi-agency working. They see police and health professionals working together in a well-defined manner. Will the Minister tell the House what progress the Government are making on such an approach? In particular, what efforts are being made to log incidents of suspected and attempted suicide and to provide that information, in agreement with the coroner, as timely, current examples of the problems and risks faced locally, rather than prevention services having to wait three years for the national statistics to be released?
The Minister will be aware of MARACs—multi-agency risk assessment conferences—in relation to domestic violence. They have been piloted in some Metropolitan police areas to highlight the suicide risk of individuals and to provide a supportive package. I was told a wonderful story from a MARAC involving a lady with dementia who had been burgled 30 years earlier and was ringing the police several times a day to report a burglary. The initial response was that she should be given an antisocial behaviour order, but the MARAC pointed out that that was not the best way of dealing with her and a support package was put in place. Police time was saved and an elderly lady was saved huge distress. Will the Minister examine how MARACs are working and whether they can be rolled out as an exemplar across the UK?
We all agree that the police play an important role in dealing with mental health issues, but post-attempted suicide support should not be a police responsibility. British Transport and Home Office police recognise that their primary responsibility is to those whose life is at risk, but that responsibility is not placed on other statutory agencies, which are able to walk away when the police cannot. It is imperative that health, voluntary sector and local government agencies, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), work together to establish a joined-up strategy, with a primary responsibility to those whose life is at risk, that both prevents suicide and deals appropriately with those who have survived a suicide attempt, ensuring in the best way possible that they do not go on to make a further attempt.
Police officers are there to deal with crises, risk to life and crime. Sadly, too much of the Minister’s budget and officer time is taken up filling gaps that health, local government and appropriate funding of the voluntary sector should be filling. I look forward to hearing how the Minister plans to free police time and responsibility for those attempting or contemplating suicide once the immediate crisis has been resolved.