Armed Forces Bill

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to this group. I have no fundamental objection in principle to extending the categories as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. When I was the Minister responsible for this Bill five years ago there was great discussion of what the categories should be.

My concern—not an objection—is practical, which is perhaps the purpose of Committee. There has been some cynicism about the effectiveness of the Armed Forces covenant since we first created it, and its implementation has been patchy across the United Kingdom. Given how many local authorities are recovering from the pandemic and have been overwhelmed, I am slightly concerned that by adding all these categories now—the key word is “now”—we run the risk of overwhelming various bodies and simply adding to the cynicism that we have not managed to implement the Armed Forces covenant when they fail to implement it effectively.

My suggestion is a sensible one, though perhaps not for today, as to whether there should be an incremental addition to the categories that we put in the Armed Forces covenant. I am sure it cannot be beyond the ability of the Bill to attach dates for when categories are potentially added. I am not saying that we could necessarily sort that out today, but it may be a sensible compromise as we seek to slowly expand the Armed Forces covenant and make sure that we do not lose public consent to it being implemented effectively as we do so.

Equally, I have great sympathy with Amendment 64, having served in Afghanistan and worked closely with interpreters. There is no doubt that they were subjected to the same sorts of pressures and stresses that members of the Armed Forces were. Of course, having now crossed the line where we have rightly welcomed them into the UK, although it is a question of scope, and it may well be beyond the scope of the Armed Forces covenant to include them, I think the Government have a duty to explain how exactly, if they are not going to be included in the covenant, we will ensure their ongoing welfare.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

I must apologise for not being here at Second Reading when I was unable to come over from Northern Ireland. I declare an interest in that we are involved at my home with veterans and I am president of the Northern Ireland RFCA. Whereas it is different in England, we have not responsibility but more interaction with veterans themselves.

What worries us all is the “due regard” and how that is treated by our different and separate Administrations. I am not shining a light on Northern Ireland in particular nor asking the Minister to make any comments about Northern Ireland, where we have a special issue. However, this problem is seen as an issue by veterans. When we talk about the mental welfare of veterans, one of the biggest issues is who we are talking about. We have veterans who we know individually have mental welfare problems, but the big problem is the one that we do not know about: the vast number of veterans who have mental welfare issues but do not come forward. They do not do so for many reasons and we cannot go into them too much, but they include pride and the fact that they live with their families and do not want to admit the problem.

We know that the length of time between leaving service or being traumatised and presentation has gone down since Prince William and Prince Harry drew attention to it, from roughly 12 or 13 years to some six or seven, which is tremendous. However, the doubt as to how the covenant works and how it benefits our veterans inhibits a lot of them from coming forward. It is very difficult to admit that you have a problem and then be turned away due to a postcode lottery. Indeed, which Administration you live in can make it more difficult.

At the moment, I think the covenant is the beginning of a story and of a method by which we can support our veterans. It is not a done deal but a start. I therefore support the gist of the amendments because they would take us in the right direction, though I appreciate that some of the scope and the lack of teeth are only a start. We have to make sure that we can take it further and cover an increasing proportion of those people.

The statistics, which are roughly equivalent to American and Danish statistics and therefore correct, show that 6% or 7% of all service people—interestingly, this relates outside this business to police and other front-line services—suffer some form of mental illness, while 17% of those on operations do so. So there is a very large body of people out there, and we have to enable this commitment to the covenant and to our people to be extended.

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[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As the noble and gallant Lord knows, I have the greatest respect for him. I have no doubt whatever about his commitment to and interest in these issues. I have tried to indicate that even to get to where we have reached has been challenging and difficult. Notwithstanding all that, it has got us to a good place. It is far better to put our toe in the water, make progress in these three significant areas—and they are significant—and assess how that is working in practice. Then we can make an informed decision about whether expansion is needed and, if so, where. Is it proving a source of concern to our Armed Forces personnel and veterans? That further work will be important to establish, first, whether a need is there and, secondly, how to meet it. As I said earlier to him, that requires extensive consultation with a large variety of bodies, not least the devolved Administrations.

I should not want to give people boundless hope that we could deliver things that, although in an Act of Parliament, could prove problematic to deliver. That is my major concern. We should manage expectation. Quite honestly, we should allow this to unfold and see how it runs. We are under an obligation in the covenant to report every year on how matters are progressing, and we have the facility in the Bill to take forward expansion if that need is identified. I suggest to the noble and gallant Lord that this is a more prudent and sensible way in which to proceed.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

Before the Minister sits down, I thank her for everything she said and for being so open-minded. However, she said that a veteran—or a veteran’s family—who goes to get help and is refused will then go to an ombudsman or through a complaints system. I think she is a bit optimistic, because veterans who have given their hearts to the country in Afghanistan and who have fought for their lives should not have to fight for this. I would rather that she had suggested a way of monitoring from the other end the refusals of help and the circumstances. My experience is that, even without mental welfare problems, veterans have given their lives to this country fighting, and they are reluctant to go public or to drag others in. We are talking about initiatives from up the chain of authority, which is monitoring and picking them up, rather than relying on our veterans to fight once again.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I can understand why the noble Viscount articulates that point. If we draw a distinction between active service personnel and veterans, I imagine that our active personnel in service at the moment are more likely to be interested in health and education. I think that our veterans are more likely to be interested in health and housing, for obvious reasons.

One of the difficulties with the noble Viscount’s suggestion is that we do not know, and we have no reason to know, whether anyone is encountering problems. To take the example from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we do not know whether a parent has a problem with getting her child adequately placed in a suitable facility until that person comes and tells us that there is a problem. We are trying to ensure that they have a much simpler route to finding the solution they need because of what the Bill is doing. That is why the obligation is being placed on the delivery end. The individuals seeking the particular facility or the help actually want to go to the provider and say, “This is what I need, please can I have it?”

In the disappointing eventuality that help is not forthcoming, if that person is in service then there will certainly be help available within the armed services to support them. If the person is a veteran, there is a plentitude of help from charitable agencies, some of the Armed Forces charities and other support charities. If there were a delay or obstruction in the necessary service being received by the person who needs it, I hope that that would be very quickly picked up so that the person knows they could go to the provider and say, “You’re failing me. You’re falling down on the job. That is not good enough.” It is very difficult for anyone else to know whether that person, first, wants a service, and, secondly, has been disappointed or obstructed in trying to get it.

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[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I wanted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, before I spoke because I thought that if there were any heffalump traps, he might have spotted them, given his expertise on reserves. I seem to recall that when we were looking at flexible working for the regulars it garnered some concern from certain Benches and perhaps from some noble and gallant Lords who were a little concerned that you could not be a part-time soldier. Actually, that was never what was being suggested.

Looking at these amendments one by one, a bit like the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I could only assume that they were all doing what the Minister said they were doing because they look so technical. I think the statement given by the Minister and the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, both suggest that this is helping to bring the reserves into an even more effective place. The reserves clearly play an important role, and if there can be a logical movement between full-time and part-time work and that counts as continuous service, that has to be all to the good. The only thing I would say, if anyone were looking at a complete guide to plain English, is that by the time anyone is looking at this Bill it will be totally unreadable because the language seems to be so arcane. I hope it will keep the government lawyers working for many years to come.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make one comment. It is slightly out of context but what the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, was talking about there, bringing the reserves in more and greater integration, also moves things. His report will take consideration of civilian contractors who come under military law. We are beginning to bring the whole thing together, and a previous amendment about making the covenant more available to those contractors who may be under military law becomes even more relevant.

Amendment 16 agreed.