Defence Personnel

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Nigel Evans

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) on securing this debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for supporting it. It is a privilege to speak for two reasons. First, we have today the publication of the first ever armed forces covenant annual report, which I will read with interest when I eventually get down to Devon tonight. Secondly, I have the enormous privilege to represent Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport which, as hon. Members may know, is the home of 3 Commando Brigade, which saw action in Afghanistan a couple of years ago.

My constituency also contains the Haslar unit that deals with members of the armed services who have lost limbs and need assistance. It does an incredibly good job. My constituency and that of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) contain HMS Heroes, which looks after the children of service families and does a very good job. I share half of the original military wives choir with the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), and I am delighted that this time last year I was able to play a small part in ensuring that VAT from the choir’s No. 1 hit, “Wherever you are”, was given to the Royal British Legion and the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association. I am grateful that the Government did so much on that.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) for making his visit later this weekend. Will he take our best wishes and thanks to family members who lost their loved ones in that appalling atrocity 30 years ago to the day? Only too often, we tend to forget the families.

I want to talk about mental health, housing and reservists. This year, national armed forces day took place in Plymouth. It was used as an opportunity by the local authority to sign its community covenant, which is a useful thing. The covenant demonstrates that the town, which is one of the principal naval garrison towns in the country, the local authority and the whole community are keen to ensure that we thank those who serve. There is an enormous amount of emotional support for our armed services, especially our Royal Marines and Royal Navy, and we need to ensure that it continues.

We must not forget the partners and children of our armoured service personnel. They bear the brunt of dealing with the more complex issues. In many cases, they are the one group of people who immediately see that their husbands, wives or partners are suffering from mental health issues. They deal with it. Only when it becomes apparent can commanding officers pick up on it. When service personnel are called away on deployment, their partners—for want of a better expression—have to keep their families together and manage the household, including paying the bills and those kinds of things. They must also ensure that service personnel wind down and settle back when they return from deployment.

That can be difficult. I have told this story before, but I will tell it again because it is an important one. The reservists were on exercises and training on Woodbury common, which is in the constituency of the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire). I asked one of them how he was getting on. He said, “Fine, but when I came back from Afghanistan and I went to my wife and my family home up in Aylesbury”—he lived away from his base—“she said, ‘Don’t start talking to me about all the problems you’ve got. I’ve had a horrendous day. I’ve answered 300 e-mails today.’” Perhaps she works for a Member of Parliament, but he said to her, “I’ve was under mortar fire for eight hours during my time in Afghanistan.”

The reservist found it difficult to communicate to his wife on the subject, and he also had difficulty speaking to his civilian mates. Only fellow Royal Marines were able to take on board what he said and had that common interest. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) had similar experiences when he came back from deployment. We must ensure that we continue to work very hard on delivering our mental health strategy in line with “Fighting Fit”, which was produced by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison)—what a good job he did!

However, we have more to do. We must ensure that our reservists can access much needed support. If we do not, we are letting people down. During my visit to HMS Haslar, I was told by the Royal Marines that they had done an enormous amount of work on trauma risk management, or TRiM. I was impressed, although my hon. Friends who speak about the Army might have a different view. We had a breakfast in Parliament, where the Royal Marines described the professional job they do to help some of their younger people through combat stress—I suspect it was called shell shock or similar in my grandfather’s day.

On my visit to HMS Haslar, I heard about Q fever, an illness that some end up having, and how difficult people find it to access support and funding. I am delighted to read in the report on the covenant that the Government have taken on board the Care Quality Commission’s report, to establish unified Ministry of Defence primary health care. I hope GPs will be given training so they understand what is going on, especially in places such as Plymouth, to which many servicemen and women return. Some GPs do not have the training in mental health that they need.

On housing, before I was elected to this place I came across an officer in the Coldstream Guards who told me that during his deployment—in Iraq, I think—he had called his wife for a 45-minute conversation. The conversation began with his wife spending a good 30 minutes talking about how a leak in the roof had totally ruined the sofa that they had bought on credit, and that left him only 15 minutes to talk about their children and parents. We have to ensure that we look after accommodation, and the Government have done well to make significant changes. In 2008, a third of Navy personnel said they were satisfied with the quality of housing, leaving two thirds who were not. Under-25s and single people were also unhappy with their housing. We need to ensure that housing is modernised, and I would welcome an extension of the right-to-buy scheme for military personnel.

My final point is about reservists. From conversations I have had with Royal Marines, I know that they are concerned about training and whether they will be deployed as a unit or individually. If we are going to reduce our regular forces and make greater use of our reservists, it is important that they are given proper training and decompression activity when they come back. Let me make this final point, too. Reservists do not necessarily live on camp; they often live elsewhere, and so their opportunity to talk to their wives or fellow reservists is limited. We need to ensure that our reservists are better informed.

Finally, I completely agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on how important it is that as a country we are not sea blind.

My final point—[Laughter]—concerns the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), so I am delighted that he is back in the Chamber. I wonder whether he and the Scottish National party are sending a confusing message. They want services in Scotland, but if it gains independence they want to get rid of the submarines and the naval bases.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Well, if there is not a fifth final point, I will call Penny Mordaunt.