Armed Forces: Civilian Life

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig of Radley on securing time for this debate, which is very timely in view of the period in the year in which we find ourselves, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, pointed out.

I was much impressed by the statement on page 15 of the Transition Mapping Study that the difference between a manageable transition and a poor one can come down to resources when the safety net provided by charities for ex-service personnel either works or fails to work, and by the point that the safety net is hard to navigate, even by those who understand it. I was impressed because I find this assessment of the efficacy of the safety net in present circumstances quite disturbing.

My initial contact with the services was some 55 years ago when I was called up for national service in the Army. Perhaps I was unusually fortunate, but two features of the Highland regiment that I joined impressed me at the time and are relevant to this debate. The first was that the regiment had strong links with particular areas in the Highlands and certain areas in the north of England from which traditionally it had drawn its recruits. The second feature was that the regiment maintained strong links with those areas by means of a network of regimental associations that were very active in looking after the interests of those who had left the service but were in need of support. We were all encouraged to believe that although we had gone back into civilian life, we were all still members of the regimental family. This applied especially to the regular soldiers who had been in the service for a long time. It was appreciated that they, too, would be likely to need support. That was why the associations were set up and why the retired officers of the regiment took such a strong interest in them.

I left the Army just as the process of amalgamations was starting. To begin with, the association system could cope with that. The regimental family was enlarged but was still a family. That all changed when all the surviving Scottish infantry regiments were gathered together into a single body, the Royal Regiment of Scotland. I make no criticism of the decision to reform the Army in Scotland in that way, but it has had the unfortunate consequence that as the links with particular recruiting areas and the associations that went with them were broken, the old families have almost entirely disappeared. That kind of support is not there any more. It will take time to build up a replacement.

I mention this because I suggest that it makes it all the more important that the Government pay very close attention to the points made in this study. The old system, when the regiments could do so much to provide the support and guidance that was needed in their own areas, has gone. Of course, as the study points out, there are strong differences between the culture of the different services, and indeed between the various units in the Army, too. The system which I have been describing was suited to the way the infantry regiments, each with its own cap badge, were organised. However, I suspect that the process of slimming down has made itself felt across all three services in a similar way. This increases the need for positive action by the Government, and it is a point that I think this study is making about the provision of resources.

At this time of the year one thinks, of course, of the Royal British Legion and of Poppyscotland, its Scottish counterpart whose unique poppy I wear. I am troubled by the suggestion that ex-servicemen find the charity sector, in which these organisations play such a prominent part, hard to navigate. I doubt whether this can be attributed to lack of effort by the charities. Each year Poppyscotland helps thousands of ex-service men and women and their families to overcome physical, emotional and financial difficulties. It also supports other veteran charities which provide specialist help and it has a high profile. Help is available to those who need it if they know where to go and can bring themselves to seek it. I am quite sure that Poppyscotland would not be alone in feeling disappointed if the route to get help from it were difficult to navigate. That is the last thing it would wish to happen. There are, however, as we all know and as has been mentioned by my noble and gallant friend Lord Walker, very many charities in this field, and one can understand that it may be a bit difficult for those who are in trouble to know where to turn to because, as the study points out, there is no central conduit for finding one’s way about.

Therefore, there seems to be much force in the points that the study makes, in recommendations 4.6 and 4.7, that there is a clear need for a central tool to be devised and provided. That would seem to be an important practical step that the Government might take to address this worrying situation, and I, for my part, would be very interested to learn from the Minister what assessment has been made of the possibility of taking it.