Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) for introducing this Bill. It is a Bill he can be proud of; I suspect it may have been a Bill he was given by Ministers to introduce, but none the less he has done so very well.

I have enjoyed the speeches from Conservative Members, who have raised some important issues relating to veterans. Across this House, we thank all those people who have served in our armed forces. As a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I add my praise to the love-in towards the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) and his team and all the SO1s from the Ministry of Defence who do such a good job supporting us in that endeavour.

This Bill is an important update to the piping, as the hon. Member for Aberconwy described it, for veterans advisory and pensions committees, which play a key role in supporting our veteran communities on a regional basis right across the United Kingdom. They are a vital method of engagement with war pensioners, armed forces compensation scheme recipients, the armed forces welfare services and the Veterans Welfare Service at a local level. I thank all those who volunteer on the committees—it is a job that until very recently has not received much attention in this place, but it is important that we thank them for the work they have been doing.

However, it also true that, as the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) mentioned, veterans advisory and pensions committees now operate in a fundamentally different environment from what their remit, as previously laid out in statute, has been. For that reason, Labour welcomes this update to the legislation to ensure that the committees are able to play a more extensive role in raising awareness of other initiatives that affect veterans and, importantly, their families—because not only those people who serve in uniform, but their families form part of the greater armed forces family and should have support.

On Second Reading last month, our shadow Minister for veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) correctly made the point that,

“local authorities, health bodies and other organisations must understand their obligations to veterans”,—[Official Report, 24 February 2023; Vol. 728, c. 480.]

and those that extend to their families, under the armed forces covenant. This Bill makes reference to that. I know that Members on both sides of the House have tried their best to make the case that the armed forces covenant needs to be more clearly explained. Now, thanks to the census, we understand where veterans are—the answer is “everywhere”—and it is for every single local authority and public body to implement the armed forces covenant correctly, ensuring that the best practice already established by councils in Portsmouth, and Plymouth, which I am proud to represent, extends to every community.

In the Bill Committee, which I note some of the Conservative Members present served on, I raised a number of points. The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs responded to them, but I want to press a couple with this Minister if I can. The work of the veterans advisory and pensions committees is very important, but they are not prominent on the Ministry of Defence website and the VAPC section on the MOD part of gov.uk could do with a wee bit of updating—in particular, ensuring that the annual report consolidating the work of all the VAPCs across the country can be more clearly understood, to enable parliamentary scrutiny.

Regarding the VAPCs, I acknowledge that the Government established non-statutory supplementary terms of reference for a period of 12 months in 2021, which provided the committees with a more comprehensive and distinct role in supporting all veterans and their families. That guidance now moves to the Ministry of Defence from the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. That is a welcome move and ensures that the work of VAPCs can be more properly aligned to other parts of veterans’ communities and public services that now interact with our veterans and their families.

I would be grateful if the Minister set out how the Secretary of State will use the powers in the Bill to appoint members of VAPCs. How do we ensure that membership of the committees reflects veterans’ communities? Two groups of veterans’ communities are often poorly served by veterans’ activities: national service veterans, who were mentioned by the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), and recent veterans. Making sure that someone is able to understand the services available to them and their pension arrangements, especially in the event of medical discharge at an earlier rate, is really important. In some cases, people who leave military service at an earlier age may not always regard themselves as veterans, so it is important that there is a representative body on the VAPCs that understands how to engage with all the appropriate groups.

Finally, many Members have discussed the superb work being done by veterans’ groups in their communities. I thank all those in Plymouth undertaking that work. On Wednesday, I visited the Southampton Veterans Drop-In Centre, with Councillor Darren Paffey from Southampton City Council. The centre does vital work, and I put on record my thanks to Colin and Tracey Gaylor for the work they are doing, providing first-class support for veterans’ communities in that city. I wish the Bill a speedy passage through the rest of its stages.