Armed Forces Personnel

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am sure the engagement that the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) must attend is a pressing one, and I do not wish to detain him.

Some hon. Members have served in our nation’s armed forces, and there are others who have not served themselves but who have close relatives who are serving. As I fall into neither of those categories, I shall keep my comments as brief as possible.

My concern is as a constituency Member of Parliament. Last week, I brought to the Prime Minister’s attention the concerns of my constituents Alan and Linda Eastwood, who are very worried about the Government’s plans to abolish the post of chief coroner. Their son, James, is a corporal with 1st Battalion The Rifles; he is 28 and has a wife and a two-year-old child. This week in a local newspaper, Mr Eastwood made the case for keeping the post of chief coroner much better than I could, so I shall quote his comments:

“James has only just returned from Afghanistan. We are one of the lucky families. James has colleagues who have been killed and colleagues who have come back with no arms or legs. I just cannot understand the Government’s position at all. To upset people who have suffered the loss of one of their family... I cannot see how the Prime Minister can justify it.”

It is no secret that I am a Labour politician, whereas Mr Eastwood tells me that he has never voted Labour in his life. I do not personally hold that against him, but I hope that I might be able to change his mind. Even if I cannot, partisanship is not the point in this issue. As a layperson, I believe that the point is that if Parliaments and Governments are to decide that young men and women are to be sent to situations where, in worst-case scenarios, they may have to make the ultimate sacrifice, the very least we can do is listen to those service personnel, those families and those organisations with the know-how—the people who know best. That is why I sincerely hope that the Prime Minister will listen to families such as the Eastwoods and to the Royal British Legion on this most important, personal and sensitive of matters.

I have one brief further point to make. Before I came to this House, I worked in the voluntary sector for 15 years, latterly for housing and homelessness charities. Nobody works for organisations of that nature without coming across the problem of the number of ex-service personnel who become homeless. In 1997, a well publicised survey from the Ex-Service Action Group on Homelessness found that about a quarter of street homeless people had a background in the armed forces. I remember that there was outrage and intense media scrutiny at the time, as indeed there should have been.

Jointly, Government action and Government action in partnership with many extraordinary voluntary organisations reduced the problem—one study by the university of York found that this action led to a fall in homelessness from about 22% to 6%. I accept that producing such figures is not an exact science, but everyone accepts that a significant reduction was made. None the less, any homeless figure, however welcome any reduction achieved, is still too many. I know that many today fear that the Government’s caps on housing benefit and cuts to homelessness provision, and the significant job cuts within our armed forces, are likely to make the situation much worse. I therefore hope that the Government will not reduce the MOD’s resettlement programme and that they will carefully consider the arguments I have made today. Finally, I hope that they will also reconsider their decision to abolish the post of chief coroner.