Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent progress his Department has made on implementing the Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan.

Since the Veterans Strategy Action Plan was published in January, we have delivered 24% of the over 60 cross-government commitments.

Recent achievements delivered through the Strategy Action Plan include;

• Provision of £150k in grant funding to charities to aid the development of best practice to ensure that veteran charities are inclusive and promote accessibility to female veterans

• Appointment of the first Veterans Commissioner for Wales, Colonel James Phillips

• Completion of a scoping study looking into the design of a service offering the digital verification of veteran status, with a further investment of £1m provided to develop this project further

• Continued support to phase 4 of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research longitudinal study through over £1.2m in funding being provided over the next two years. This study looked at the health and wellbeing of UK Armed Forces Personnel and for the first time, this will also look at topics including social mobility, taking the insights beyond health and wellbeing.