Veterans Strategy — House of Lords, 2018-11-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for introducing this debate. We have been discussing the challenge of veterans for a decade now. When I saw the title of this debate, I thought, "Well, let’s see where we’ve got to in actually achieving things". The core achievement to date has been the Armed Forces covenant, which has had pretty widespread approval. It is therefore useful to measure how the Armed Forces have fared under its care It is important to realise what the covenant says. It is on one page and begins: "An Enduring Covenant Between" The language is all quite flowery—there are three paragraphs—but right in the middle is a paragraph which, if it does not have teeth, has clarity. I fear that I have to tell noble Lords that it is not only not the best, it is almost the opposite. In fact, this paragraph says two things: that veterans "should face no disadvantage" and that in some circumstances there should be "special consideration". It is against those tests—unless we want to change them—that we have to judge how well the Government are doing. So let us look at some areas Housing has been a real problem, particularly the way that local authorities behave, and the Government have worked hard on it. The progress report on the covenant is contained in an annual report, the last of which was published in December 2017. It said, talking about how local authorities had been instructed: "The package included: ensuring Veterans with urgent housing needs were always given priority for social housing; encouraging councils to take account of the needs of the Armed Forces Community in their policy making, and introducing regulations to ensure councils did not disqualify Service personnel who had recently left the Services and did not meet the local connection test" We had a debate about a year and a half ago, in which I said that my test of this is Rushmore. Rushmore, for those who do not know, is Aldershot and Farnborough under a fancy new name. Its housing policy 18 months ago did not refer to veterans. I have looked it up and it now says precisely the things that the covenant calls for: the Government get a tick for that. There is a problem though. It says that veterans effectively have fair access to social housing. The problem is that there is no social housing. The problem with fair access to very little is that it is very little. It is the basic housing issues in this country, especially social housing, that we have to get right for all our citizens, including veterans Veterans are also part, sadly, of the scourge of rough sleeping. The data suggests that the incidence is about the same as in the general population, but I agree that there should be no rough sleeping, for any of our citizens. If we can tackle that issue then we will indeed do the right job for veterans The next area I looked at was training. There are lots of references in various bits of literature to how wonderful service personnel are, how well adapted to exciting jobs in the real world, but the individuals who illustrate this are frequently reasonably senior people who have done well. Does the system look after the private infantryman who has done four years and comes out at the age of 22 or 23? I fear not, and I hope that the Minister can disabuse me. Where would that individual traditionally have looked to in order to get some qualifications, because it is perfectly reasonable that people with life experiences do not have qualifications? He would have looked to adult education. Adult education has had its funding cut by £3 billion in recent years. There used to be 5.2 million people in adult education: the figure is now down to 1.9 million. Again, I am sure that service veterans are getting fair access to this, but they are getting fair access to one-third of the provision they would have received but a few years ago I then went on to look at mental health, which is a very interesting area. There have been clear improvements in recent years, making access to mental health services fairer and making sure that the transition between the military and the NHS is good. However, let us not kid ourselves that this is anything other than "not disadvantaged". Indeed, the 2017 report on the covenant talks of, "access times and outcomes at least as good (and sometimes better) than for the general population" It is commendable that it is being achieved, but it is all that is being achieved Let us move on to the second promise in the covenant. The precise words in that extremely powerful paragraph are: "Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most such as the injured and the bereaved" We have talked about the bereaved and those injured, in the physical sense, but are there other senses of injury? If we look at mental health in the total population, the incidence of mental ill-health in veterans is not grossly dissimilar to that of the general population but—and it is an important but—on PTSD, the picture is different A press release from Kings College London has said: "New research from Kings College London suggests the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan may have led to an increase in the rate of probable Post Traumatic Stress Disorder … among members of the UK Armed Forces" It went on to say: "The higher rates of probable PTSD is primarily seen among ex-serving personnel who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Among those who deployed to the conflict, the rate of probable PTSD for veterans was 9% compared to 5% for veterans who did not deploy. The rate of probable PTSD among currently serving personnel was also 5%, which is close to the rate … in the general population … Among ex-serving personnel who deployed in a combat role to Iraq or Afghanistan, 17% reported symptoms suggesting probable PTSD compared to 6% of those deployed in a support role" It is clear that this illness is related, at least statistically, to combat experience. That seems to fall in the general territory of special consideration. When one looks at what PTSD is all about, it is terrifying. I looked it up on the NHS website and I am not sure how people survive it, with their, "Re-experiencing … flashbacks … Avoidance and emotional numbing … Hyperarousal … Angry outbursts … depression … Drug misuse", et cetera. Here, surely, is the case for special treatment Unfortunately, according to the Defence Committee, the situation does not really seem to come up for special treatment. The committee said in its report: "We are particularly concerned that the Armed Forces Covenant principle of priority treatment when a condition is service-related is not being consistently applied across the UK. The Department of Health and Social Care considers that the NHS founding principles on equality and clinical need constrain how it can provide priority treatment to veterans. This difference in interpretation is confusing not just to veterans but also to clinicians; this may add to veterans’ perception that the health service is failing them" It seems to me that this area falls classically into the second part of the covenant’s promise and that the Government are failing in not addressing it directly In many of the areas where service veterans suffer, the problem is that the general population is suffering, be it housing, training or mental health. I accept that the Government have achieved their objective of not disadvantaging veterans in many areas and have made good progress in recent times. We have to address the fundamental supply of those areas and be much better at being sensitive to the second promise, where special consideration should apply.