Defence Spending

Debate between Mark Francois and Jeffrey M Donaldson

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The military charities play an important role in supporting our veterans, but the military covenant must mean something and it must be real. I still meet too many armed forces veterans who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have been abandoned after a number of years. That applies particularly to those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Sadly, as a result of Operation Banner being conducted in Northern Ireland for more than 30 years, we have a large number of ex-security force and ex-military personnel suffering from PTSD, and recent research has shown that the number is growing. The armed forces charities are really struggling to support those personnel, and more needs to be done. The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that if we are going to increase our spending we should ensure that our veterans, especially those who have been injured on operational deployment, get the support, care and treatment that they need, and that they can continue to do so.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Mark Francois)]

Specifically on injured service personnel, I would like to give the House just one example of how we have tried to do better. We managed to get £6.5 million from the Treasury special reserve, with the Treasury’s full approval, to provide the latest generation of prosthetics—the so-called geniums, or what The Sun describes as “bionic” legs—for our wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. They set the world standard in prosthetics. We spent £6.5 million of taxpayers’ money—which no one would object to—to give our wounded service personnel the best that money could buy.

[Mr Donaldson]

I appreciate that. I have the greatest respect for the Minister and I know from our conversations how deeply and strongly he feels about supporting those who have served in our armed forces. I take on board the point that he has made. My concern, however, is for those who are beyond that point, particularly those who are suffering from mental trauma. There is a need to do more to support those members of our armed forces. We need to support, through infrastructure, those who serve our nation.

I want to conclude by mentioning the reserve forces. We have put a lot of emphasis on their work and there is an urgent need to embed more regular personnel into the reserve forces to help with the training regime there, so that they are better trained and so that we improve the levels of manpower retention. As Ministers know, we have been very successful in Northern Ireland in our recruitment capacity. Many of our units are already fully recruited and we want to build on that work.

I welcome this debate. The Chancellor recently said:

“We can afford whatever it takes to provide adequate security. Defence comes first.”

If in the next Parliament my party is called upon to support a Government, that Government will need to be one who mean just what the Chancellor said.

Military Covenant

Debate between Mark Francois and Jeffrey M Donaldson

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I am aware of the issue and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his persistence on these and related matters. We had an Adjournment debate recently on a parallel issue, although not exactly the same one. I believe that we are doing what we can to try to solve the problem, but as it is quite technical, as he knows, if he wants to write to me on the specific points I would be happy to look into them and get back to him.

In common with other legislation, the provisions of the 2011 Act extend to Northern Ireland in the same way as they apply to all other parts of the United Kingdom. Those principles are important because they influence the formation of policy, but there are other sides to the covenant, too. One of those is the community covenant, which seeks to bring together local authorities and other local organisations with members of the armed forces community who live and serve in the area for which they are responsible. To date, more than 200 local authorities across the United Kingdom have signed a community covenant. I am proud to say that in Essex the other day, I signed that covenant on behalf of the Government in my own county, and some 13 local authorities signed one after the other.

We are clear that by forging such relationships the community covenant is starting to have a positive impact on the lives of the armed forces community and on the wider community. For example, in Gateshead the council is making arrangements, among many other measures, to explore opportunities for serving personnel and veterans to access leisure facilities to support their overall health and well-being needs, including their mental health needs.

In Oxfordshire, the county council, by working with the NHS and 145 (South) Brigade, has been able to help resolve problems of access to GPs and dentists for the families of serving personnel. Dental services have also been extended in some areas to address a shortfall and the referral process for primary care services has been made easier.

Also in Oxfordshire, the local authority has arranged for school places to be allocated to service families in advance of the family’s actual move, based on a letter from the relevant unit. That has been a long-standing problem when military units move from one location to another, but I understand that the Department for Education is now encouraging other local authorities to take a similar approach to try to alleviate the difficulty.

In the past, members of the armed forces could also be pushed towards the bottom of local housing waiting lists, as the need to move from base to base often meant they could not prove a local connection to the area in which they wanted to live, but, thanks again to the armed forces covenant, many local councils will now ensure that due consideration is given to service families so that they are not at a disadvantage when applying for a council home. That extends to serving people, families and, importantly, veterans.

One of the chief benefits of the community covenant is quite simply that people are now talking to one another in a way that they never did before. To some degree, we are doing that in the House this evening. Local authorities, which deliver many of the vital services at ground level, are being made aware of the needs of the armed forces community, which they might not have considered fully in the past. At the same time, it is fair to say that service personnel and their families are becoming increasingly aware of what life is like beyond the wire and how they can help their local communities.

As the House knows, the 2011 Act also places an obligation on the Secretary of State for Defence to report annually to Parliament on the state of the armed forces covenant. The first of these statutory reports will be published before Christmas and will set out in more detail what the Government are doing to deliver in the key areas that the covenant covers.

I now want to speak about extending the armed forces covenant to Northern Ireland. Hon. and right hon. Members from Northern Ireland will be aware that many of the main areas covered by the covenant, such as housing, health and education, all lie within the devolved field and that these services are provided by Northern Ireland Departments, which are answerable to Northern Ireland Ministers in the Executive, not all of whom currently support this agenda, as the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley intimated.

Northern Ireland Departments and other public authorities also need to give due regard to the statutory obligations placed on them by section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act to promote equality of opportunity in respect of all the functions they perform and the services they provide. Herein, as it were, lies the dilemma. It is not for Westminster to tell Stormont what it must do in respect of the covenant—it is for Northern Ireland Executive Ministers to debate and negotiate and agree how the armed forces covenant should apply in Northern Ireland to the extent permitted by law.

There are some who say that section 75 is a hindrance and should be amended to somehow allow the covenant to be applied. Of course we want to see the armed forces covenant principles applied right across the United Kingdom. However, if the Northern Ireland Executive decide not to proceed with the covenant, that does not justify amending section 75, which is one of the cornerstones in the architecture of the Belfast agreement that was endorsed in referendums in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.

I think it is fair to say that Northern Ireland has made great progress since the dark days of the troubles. This month we saw the Taoiseach lay a wreath at the war memorial in Enniskillen following on from the historic wreath layings—both at the garden of remembrance in Dublin and at the Irish war memorial at Islandbridge—by Her Majesty the Queen during her highly successful state visit last year. That, of course, built on the historic joint unveiling in 1998 by Her Majesty and the President of Ireland of the Messines peace tower on the site of the battle of Messines Ridge, to remember the Irish dead of the first world war—also mentioned earlier this evening—and to inaugurate the Island of Ireland peace park.

[Mr Donaldson]

I understand the point that the Minister is making. However, the Northern Ireland Executive have not decided that it should not proceed with the military covenant and Ministers in their Departments are free to proceed with implementation. It is just that the equality provisions in section 75 sometimes present an obstacle to that. The Northern Ireland Act cannot be amended by the Northern Ireland Assembly; that is a matter for this House. That is why we want to discuss with the Government how we can overcome that obstacle.

[Mr Francois]

I think what the right hon. Gentleman has said is very reasonable. I hope that some of the acts of remembrance that I was referring to a few minutes ago will inspire those in the Northern Ireland Executive to work together to find a way forward to apply the covenant principles in a practical manner, and I hear what the right hon. Gentleman has said about their only being able to do so much. I think that that is something we could all discuss when we meet the Prime Minister next month. If, in that time, the right hon. Gentleman can explore what could be done by the Northern Ireland Executive, I believe that would materially inform that discussion. Then we need to see where we can go from there. I will leave it to the Minister of State to say whether there is any more that he can add to that when he winds up at the end of the debate, but I hope that I am replying to the right hon. Gentleman in the spirit in which he intervened on me.

My hon. Friend the Minister of State has invited me to visit Northern Ireland. I have accepted his invitation to visit in the new year, to see for myself how the covenant operates in practice and whether there are any practical difficulties. I hope that it will also be possible for me to meet personnel from 38 Brigade. I think that, after the right hon. Gentleman’s comments, I am now honour-bound to visit a cadet unit as well; and as my own father served in the Royal Navy, perhaps I might be able to squeeze in a visit to HMS Caroline, too.

In conclusion, we appreciate the complex history of Northern Ireland, and the sensitivities in this area, but we also appreciate the valuable service in our armed forces given to the Crown by so many from Northern Ireland—and indeed the whole of the island of Ireland—over many generations. It is important that we remember that service, and that we do our best for those who have served with such distinction—and for their families—because they have helped to keep us free.