War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme Payments

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). Perhaps there will be a certain type of reply to his final question, because I asked the Minister this morning about the Army’s future soldier programme and how it engages with those in what we weirdly call the “ordinary ranks”. I think the answer to him will be the same as the one to me about veterans engaging in this process—I got a less than effusive response this morning.

The reason I wish to speak in this debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) is because I know the case of his constituent Garry and because, having been on the Defence Committee for a number of years—it is always good to see its former Chair, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis,) with us—I wish to follow up on a couple of issues. Not only that, but my nephew is a member of the Royal Engineers and is now extending his time in the armed forces, and I am delighted for him. As the Minister will know, he was my brother’s commanding officer for at least one of his tours of Afghanistan, my brother being a reservist; so much of the backbone of the armed forces is in the reserves, but we will come on to that in a wee minute. I may also take up the points made by the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) about chairing the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill last year. Was it last year?

[James Sunderland]

2021.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

It was 2021, yes. The hon. Gentleman had to do that online, and I congratulate him on that. A range of issues similar to those faced by Garry, the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian, consistently came up; here we are in the 21st century and members of the armed forces of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland require us to stand and have these debates. They require us to stand and say how wonderful it is for charities to support them—charity! I find that extraordinary. I am more a fan of the Danish model, where a member of the armed forces, no matter their rank and how long they have been in the armed forces, receives the same treatment as every other citizen, because the treatment is that good that they do not need anything different and they do not need to rely on charity.

I know that many of the charitable organisations that support members of the armed forces—there are a lot of them—do a power of work and have done for a number of years. Many of them have done this for a very long time, such as the Royal British Legion, Poppyscotland and others. When it comes to issues such as war pensions and armed forces compensation pay schemes, I wonder to myself, “Is it really up to charities or even the body itself, the war pensions armed forces scheme, to be part of this process, to the exclusion not only of veterans, but members of the armed forces themselves?” That comes back to the crux of the matter.

I know that Conservative Members will disagree with what I am about to say, but I am glad that the Labour party decided at the last election to agree with the SNP on the requirement for an armed forces representative body. That is the missing cog in this wheel. We see that time and again. For example, if we go back to the extraordinary report led by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), through the Defence Committee, on women in the armed forces, we see that a clear clarion call about the treatment of women was that women in the “ordinary ranks” were not being listened to. We see the exact same thing when it comes to terms and conditions or the future armed services programme: no one is listening to the ordinary ranks. I am in disbelief that we are still going through old conundrum.

If we look at so many of the armed forces across the NATO alliance, we see that because they have independent armed forces representative bodies like a police federation, without the right to strike—apart from in the Netherlands, where people have that right—they are able to move forward in agreement, in negotiation with their Governments. In the Scandinavian model and, notably, in Denmark, we see that this also comes with the vast majority of Parliament agreeing a set out programme over a period, for example, a parliamentary term. So there is engagement, discussion, debate and agreement about treatment and terms and conditions, including pensions.

It beggars belief that nearly 80 years after the second world war, we are still talking about veterans as though they were charity cases. It is extraordinary that 21st-century parliamentarians are still having this type of debate, no matter how good or well intentioned the charities are that provide so much support. However, as someone who worked in charities before coming to Parliament, I was always trying to do myself out of a job. I know, frankly, that that will go down like a lead balloon with some, but the reality is that the failure to move forward with engagement, discussion, deliberation and agreement continues to fail veterans. It will continue to fail veterans now, as well as people such as my nephew who will be veterans at some point. I hope that, by that time, we will have moved forward and will have an independent armed forces representative body.