Support for UK Armed Forces and Veterans

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I will come to the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder and what is known as Gulf war syndrome. I am aware of and have previously commended in the House the work of the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who is in his place, and the report that he produced, which I know the Secretary of State has committed to implementing in full. We welcome that commitment and look forward to its being honoured, but we are also supportive of the key points that the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) made in his early-day motion. Some of the soldiers who suffer from Gulf war syndrome reside in Northern Ireland; I have met some of them and am aware of their concerns, and more needs to be done to assist those suffering from that condition.

A harrowing statistic that has been given in the House before, going back to the Falklands conflict, is that more of our armed services personnel who served there took their own lives as a result of the trauma of their involvement in that conflict than died in the conflict itself.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

That statistic keeps being repeated, but I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at the evidence and find out where it comes from, because I do not think it is right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point and I look forward to hearing what the Secretary of State has to say on behalf of the Government.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It is interesting that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) is continuing the way he acted in Committee by supporting everything the Government do. The Opposition tabled an amendment in Committee to enshrine the covenant in law, but he and the Government voted against it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

May I begin by associating myself and my party with the remarks of the Secretary of State about Liam Tasker? The work that he was doing was vital not only in securing and supporting his colleagues and comrades but in bringing peace to Afghanistan. We should think today of his bravery and the sacrifice that he has made, and also think of his family and his comrades who have been left behind.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) on securing this debate. As the Secretary of State said, when I was at the Ministry of Defence, I had the honour of visiting Northern Ireland on a number of occasions. I concur with his view about the contribution that people from Northern Ireland make—not only servicemen and women but their families— in supporting our armed forces and making the valiant contribution that they are making today in Afghanistan.

Our commitment to the men and women of our armed forces is non-negotiable. As Veterans Minister, I was always very proud of the support that the British people gave to our servicemen and women and their families, recognising their courage, skill and dedication. We must do our best not only to honour them when they make the ultimate sacrifice but to support them while they are in service and throughout life.

I should like briefly to touch on what the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley said about the previous Government’s commitment to this issue and the contribution that we made to supporting not only our servicemen and women but their families. The Command Paper to which he rightly referred was a groundbreaking piece of work initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) when he was Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence. For the first time, it looked across Government and got different Departments working together. The Command Paper had two fundamental principles: first, to recognise and end the disadvantages created by military-style life—for example, where being moved meant losing one’s place on waiting or housing lists—and secondly, to recognise that at all times it is right and necessary to provide special treatment, whether in removing disadvantage or in recognising the sacrifice made by those who have been seriously injured in the service of their country.

That piece of work was a landmark document. It did not just gather dust; it was implemented through working across Government and, for the first time, getting other Government Departments thinking about veterans and servicemen and women and their families when they were developing policies. I hope that it has left a good foundation for the coalition Government to build on. I put on record my thanks to the Royal British Legion for its campaign and the work that it continues to do not only in highlighting our debt to our servicemen and women and their families but in ensuring that all politicians recognise that debt.

When we published the Command Paper, we were criticised in certain quarters for trying to ensure that we honoured the covenant. Unlike some Conservative politicians who were happy to take pot shots at us when we were in government, I never believed that the covenant was broken; rather, it was something that we were able to build on through the Command Paper. We did much to be proud of, in which I was directly involved, in improving the lot of servicemen and women and veterans.

The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) mentioned service accommodation. When I was a Minister, he was always knocking on my door to advocate and lobby for improved accommodation in Colchester. We made some great strides in improving accommodation, although that was made very difficult by the decision taken in 1996 by the previous Conservative Government to sell off Army housing to a Japanese bank.

[Bob Russell]

The hon. Gentleman is right to refer the House to the disgraceful privatisation involving Annington Homes. Does he agree that every pound of public money that is spent on improving the housing stock increases the value of that property to Annington Homes?

[Mr Jones]

It is on the record that that was a lousy deal for taxpayers, our servicemen and women, and their families. The important point is that we invested in new housing. In some cases, it was difficult to negotiate around the Annington Homes deal because of how it was structured.

The new single living accommodation that has been put in place through SLAM—the single living accommodation modernisation project—is some of the best anywhere in the world in terms of quality. The millions of pounds that we spent to improve service accommodation were recognised in 2009 by the National Audit Office, which stated that 90% of service families’ accommodation were in the top two of four standards for condition and met the Government’s decent homes standard. I accept that there is still accommodation that is not acceptable, and that sometimes the way in which service families were treated was wrong. Sometimes they were treated as though they were in the Army as well. On occasions, we did not get that right and did not recognise that the families should be looked at as customers, rather than as simply part of their partner’s employment conditions.

Health care is another area that the previous Government can be proud of. The new Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham has dedicated military wards, and we put money into Headley Court to provide first-rate and world-beating rehabilitation for those who are severely injured in the service of their country. One of the things that I am most proud of from my time as a Minister is the Army recovery capability project, and I am pleased that the Government are following through on that. We owe a debt to the severely injured. We must not forget them when the headlines go away, but must have a long-term commitment to them.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned our debt and said that we must not forget. Will he recognise an area of support for the armed forces that has not been mentioned, which is remembering those who have fallen? Will he join me in welcoming the recent decision of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) to recommend to the Sentencing Guidelines Council that the desecration of war memorials should be considered as an aggravating factor, to reflect the seriousness of such offences?

[Mr Jones]

I do welcome that announcement. As a commissioner of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, I think that it is very important that anybody who desecrates such monuments, whether or not they are Commonwealth War Graves Commission monuments, should be dealt with severely. The disgraceful scenes that we have seen of people desecrating war memorials are totally unacceptable and should be condemned.

[Dr Murrison]

In the “National Recognition of our Armed Forces” study, Lord Davies of Stamford, the former Member for Grantham and Stamford, stated that if those who wear the Queen’s uniform are insulted, that crime should be subject to special sentencing. Does the hon. Gentleman still hold to that?

[Mr Jones]

It is totally unacceptable for anyone to be disrespectful to anybody in uniform, whether they are a member of our armed forces or of any other service that works on our behalf, such as the police or fire services. If the hon. Gentleman wants to put forward that policy now that his party is in government, I am sure that it will be supported by Opposition Members.

Another aspect of health that we must refer to is mental health, and I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) in that area. In government, we made great strides with the mental health pilots and the medical assessment programme at St Thomas’s hospital under Ian Palmer, which was there to provide support to all veterans, including Gulf war veterans, who were mentioned by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) who is no longer in his place. I support anything that improves mental health services. The Command Paper did that by allowing us to work with the health service to ensure that mainstream mental health services reflect the needs of veterans.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that veterans, particularly those who have served in recent conflicts and particularly those who suffer from mental health problems, are not well served in northern England and frequently have to travel some distance. I hope that we can have an all-party approach to reaching a better conclusion on those treatments.

[Mr Jones]

I am surprised that the hon. Lady says that, because one of the mental health pilots was in the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, which covers my constituency in Durham and hers. That pilot was specifically about ensuring that local services such as mental health nursing recognised the needs of veterans. I am not sure where the Government have got to in that work, but anything that can be done to roll it out should be done. I agree with her that services need to be local. If possible, people should not have to travel long distance to access them.

I know that the new veterans Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), agrees that when we are debating mental health issues relating to veterans, we should not lose sight of the fact that although post-traumatic stress disorder is a personal tragedy for every individual who suffers from it and for their families, it affects a small proportion of the population—something like 4%. Other areas, such as depression and alcohol abuse, need the same concentration and support. We need to focus the media portrayal of this issue back on to those other areas, and not just label everything as PTSD.

The previous Government can also be proud of doubling the compensation paid to injured servicemen and women. No amount of monetary compensation can repay the sacrifice of the veterans with horrific wounds whom I have met. However, we helped by doubling the amount and by ensuring that, for the first time, such people received lump-sum payments. Before the Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Act 2004, they did not get lump-sum payments, although if one read the newspapers of the time, one would have thought that they had always existed. I put on the record my thanks to Lord Boyce, who did a valuable job in fine-tuning the compensation scheme and bringing it up to date. I know that the Government are committed to implementing his recommendations.

Service charities are also important, as has been recognised by the Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley. The Royal British Legion has been mentioned, as have the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association and the Army Benevolent Fund. Those organisations are not just about fundraising, but contain a vital network of unpaid volunteers who, week in, week out, go into veterans’ homes to support them. I thank those volunteers for the work that they do. Combat Stress does a vital job in ensuring that individuals who suffer from mental illness access the support that they require. We need to ensure that there is better co-ordination in the charities sector. That is happening through some of the initiatives that I implemented, and it is being followed through to ensure that there is no duplication. I stress from the Dispatch Box that what we need is not new service charities, but for existing charities to work closer together, which they are, to ensure that the support is there.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in allowing interventions. May I counsel caution? Many micro-charities are spontaneous and very British, if I may put it in that way. They reflect the public’s desire to do something immediately. Often, they are part of the grieving process. I therefore urge caution about laying into such small charities.

[Mr Jones]

I take that point on board, but the best thing to do would be to focus fundraising efforts on the existing charities. The Royal Navy is rationalising its smaller charities. That is not being done to denigrate their work, because some of them do key specific work, but it is important that there is better co-ordination between them.

[Ian Paisley]

I believe that there are something like 2,000 such charities, many of which are doing an excellent job, and that they are issue-specific and will fade out. There is a strong case to be made for co-ordinating and consolidating their work.

[Mr Jones]

I believe the Confederation of British Service and Ex-service Organisations is working with the Veterans Minister to consider how we can get better co-ordination between those charities, which will be very important, especially when the clientele of some of the smaller charities pass away over the next few years. I am thinking, for example, of the Association of Wrens, which I believe has an end-date by which it will wind itself up and merge with other naval service charities. I put on record again my thanks to the individuals involved in such charities.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley mentioned the covenant, which it is important to consider. The previous Government were quite clear in our Command Paper about where our work on that would go next, and the Green Paper that I produced in 2008 considered ways of embedding in law the covenant and other matters covered in the Command Paper. I am sad that the Government are not following through on that work, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister’s commitment on the deck of the Ark Royal is in sharp contrast with what has happened in practice.

The opportunity provided by the Armed Forces Bill is being missed, because the covenant is not being enshrined in law. Members have mentioned the Royal British Legion, which clearly feels let down. It saddened me that when I tabled an amendment to the Bill in Committee a few weeks ago, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats voted against it. That was a missed opportunity, and we need to revisit the matter.

[Dr Fox]

rose—

[Mr Jones]

If the Secretary of State is rethinking the matter, I will very much welcome it.

[Dr Fox]

This has been a very open debate so far. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain to me whether, in his eyes, putting the military covenant into law means creating specific, definable rights for certain members of society. Will he give us an example of what sort of rights those might be, and what legal advice the Opposition have been given about the justiciability of such rights?

[Mr Jones]

If the Secretary of State has looked at our Green Paper, he will have seen what I was proposing. I agree that we should not create a feast for lawyers, but we wanted to ensure, for example, priority access in the health service, which we believed could be legally enforceable. My recent amendment suggested that the local government ombudsman should be responsible, as was suggested in the Green Paper. I accept that there is resistance to that, not from the Ministry of Defence but from other Departments. However, people ask whether veterans should get special treatment, and, in my opinion, they should.

[Mr David Hamilton]

It might help if I say that in my local authority area veterans get priority in housing. We have the Glencorse barracks in my area, and people coming out of the armed forces have always gone to the top of the list. That is enshrined in the rules. Such a provision in law could make every local authority comply with that arrangement. They do not all do it at the moment.

[Mr Jones]

I am aware of that, and I know that other local authorities including Wigan have changed their housing policies to do exactly the same thing. The Prime Minister made a clear commitment to enshrining that in law, as the quotation that we have heard this afternoon shows. The Armed Forces Bill does not do that, and if the Government are rethinking ways of doing it, they will certainly have the Opposition’s support and assistance.

[Ian Paisley]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, and I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for it. There is a strong case to be made that it is a national issue. When a soldier comes out of the Army, they should be able to settle in public housing somewhere with their family and expect something in return for the service that they have given this nation. It is a very small ask, and we should insist on it.

[Mr Jones]

I totally agree. The danger with the system outlined in the Bill is that the Secretary of State will produce a report without any independent input. As I said in Committee, I do not question for one minute the Secretary of State’s integrity or his intention to ensure that everything that should be in the report is in it, but a future Secretary of State could decide that certain matters should not be. That is a missed opportunity, and I hope that when the Bill goes to the other place it will be amended to ensure that the covenant is enshrined in law.

[Bob Russell]

It is.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman chunters on about that, and I know he is doing his best to support the Conservatives now—I believe he is known locally as Tory Bob these days. I found it remarkable that he was the only member of the Public Bill Committee who was doing the Government’s heavy lifting. It is important that we enshrine the covenant in law, and if the Government reconsider the matter they will certainly have our support.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley mentioned Gurkha pensions. As Members know, I have form on that matter. I wish to dispel some of the myths that continue to be portrayed in the newspapers and media about the equalisation of pensions. A Gurkha can retire after 15 years of service, so in some cases they retire on a full pension at about 35 years of age, or even younger. If pensions were equalised, most Gurkhas would not gain anything at all, because their UK counterparts cannot access their pension until they are 60. Backdating would mean their getting not just equalised pensions but actually better terms and conditions than other servicemen and women in some cases. Before 1975, service people got no pension whatever unless they had 22 years’ service. It is important that the facts are examined in detail.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Perhaps it might be of interest to my hon. Friend to hear that recently some Gurkha campaigners have been writing to the Defence Committee complaining that although the Government parties used a lot of rhetoric in opposition, the great promises that they made have been abandoned since the formation of the Government. The campaigners feel let down.

[Mr Jones]

I have friends on the Government Benches, and I know that even when they were in opposition some of them privately agreed with my position and that of the Government at the time. Clearly, in the hubris of the campaign, opportunistic Liberal Democrats got carried away. Unfortunately, Gurkhas and their families are now feeling the consequences. The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth), will have to answer questions about that.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley said that 10,000 Gurkhas are living in poverty. There are two separate types of Gurkha pensioner—welfare pensioners, who do not accept pensions, and service pensioners. When I visited Nepal, I saw that service pensioners are some of the wealthiest individuals in their local communities. Although they have a pension of only about £170 a month, that is equivalent to the income of an engineer or a junior doctor, so people need to examine the facts. Welfare pensioners are supported very ably by the Gurkha Welfare Trust and the Ministry of Defence, both financially and through logistical support on health and education.

Once again, I welcome the debate. Our brave servicemen and women are serving around the world, and we have a debt to them not just now but for years to come. It is right that they have had a lot of attention and recognition while they have been serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. As my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) said earlier, it is important that in future years, when the spotlight has perhaps moved elsewhere, we do not forget our debt to them. I will work with anybody who wants to ensure that servicemen and women, particularly those who have suffered mental injury or serious injury, are not forgotten when they are in their 60s, 70s and 80s. We cannot shy away from our debt to them, no matter what happens economically or in any other way.