Veteran Suicide

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry, and to follow the excellent contribution of the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). I congratulate the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) on introducing this important debate. He represents a proud military and naval city. Indeed, my connection with this issue goes back to his city, because my first job on leaving university was working in Portsmouth on the Fratton Road at the then Radio Victory, which, as its name suggests, had proud connections with the military background of the city.

That was 34 years ago—I know that colleagues will find that difficult believe. It was then that I, as a student straight out of university, started to learn about the difficulties military personnel face in proud cities such as Portsmouth, and how we as a society need to do more to help them. The hon. Gentleman’s contribution illustrated that extraordinarily well.

I stand now, though, as the Member for North Devon, and I will proudly speak about the connections between our county and the armed services. Devon has the highest number of veterans as a proportion of its population of any county in the UK, and we are extraordinarily proud of that. An estimated 100,000 veterans live in Devon, many of them in my constituency, where we have a proud historical connection with the military.

North Devon is, first and foremost, home to Royal Marines Base Chivenor. I am delighted to say that, in the last few weeks, the Minister announced a reversal of the plan to close that base, so it will remain home to the Royal Marines and a number of other armed forces personnel. We are extremely pleased about that in North Devon. Until recently, we also had an Army base at Fremington. In addition, there is a military establishment at Instow, and Barnstaple is home to the Royal Wessex Yeomanry. So we have active serving personnel, as well as a large cohort of veterans.

Sadly, it is estimated that almost one in six of our veterans has complex mental health needs—an issue that will no doubt grow in importance in the coming years. Mental ill health often presents itself in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder, but—this is one of my main concerns—it is, in many cases, an invisible condition. Not only do we, the state and the Government need to take greater notice, but society needs to change its attitudes too. That is something in which I take a particular interest—an interest that ranges across not just our former armed forces personnel, but many others who live with mental ill health.

I welcomed the Defence Secretary’s pledge last year to increase funding for armed forces mental health services to £220 million over the next decade. As we also heard last summer, NHS budgets across the board are increasing. That is a good start, but it all comes down to targeting. We need to be able to recognise those who need to receive that help and support, and we need to improve our understanding of the long-term impacts of active service and the changing nature of our veteran communities, which creates a further challenge.

As well as the work being done by the Government, an enormous amount of extraordinarily valuable work is being done by voluntary groups, charities and third-sector organisations. I will mention one in particular: the Veterans Charity, which is based in my constituency but does work very much across the country. Every May, the charity hosts an event called the “Forces March”, which has so far raised nearly half a million pounds to help the very people the hon. Member for Portsmouth South is seeking to raise the profile of this afternoon.

I say to the Minister that I recognise that a lot of good work has already been done. We need to keep working on this, and we need, as a society, to talk with pride about the service of our veterans, recognising that we owe them all the help and support that they need because of the service they have given us.