Social Care and Military Compensation — House of Commons, 2015-03-25
Topic: Defense
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): As has now been confirmed several times, this is the last occasion to raise such issues in this Session, and I wish to speak about the unfair treatment of some veterans owing to the disparity in the way that different armed forces compensation schemes are treated when social care costs are calculated. I pay tribute to Poppyscotland and the Royal British Legion, which highlighted that issue with their Insult to Injury campaign. In the past, I have been pleased to work closely with the Royal British Legion, both nationally and locally in Blackpool, and together we delivered a petition with 3,000 signatures calling for stronger punishment for those who vandalise war memorials. I was also pleased to support the Blackpool armed forces covenant and veterans charter in 2011. I wish to touch on that veterans charter and covenant, praying in aid the arguments I will present tonight As chair of the all-party group on veterans, which deals with a number of issues, including welfare, I was fortunate to initiate a meeting in Parliament with the Forces in Mind Trust. Its latest report is about support for veterans’ families, and we will hear tonight about veterans who are losing the means to support their families when compensation payments are removed. Fundraising year-on-year by the Royal British Legion and other ex-service organisations, including Poppyscotland, provides extra support for veterans. Locally and nationally, our veterans should not be left by the state in financial circumstances that are unfair. The state must do its bit, particularly when there are unequal Government regulations Tonight I will focus on the disparity between the way that the two different compensation schemes operate. Those injured before April 2005 received compensation for particular injuries through the war pension scheme, which provides regular payments based on the severity of injury. Those injured from April 2005 onwards receive support for any disablement through the armed forces compensation scheme—AFCS. That comes in two parts: a lump sum and, in a similar fashion to the war pension, a regular payment for the most severely disabled veterans and ex-servicemen. Those two schemes seek to compensate for the pain and challenge of particular injuries that some veterans receive when serving bravely in our armed forces, but when it comes to how they are processed through the social care system, they are treated very differently As of 2012, any veteran supported by the newer AFCS scheme has all that income disregarded while they are means-tested for social care. Although their other forms of income are rightly considered so that they make the same contribution as any civilian to their social care, they will still have left over the income they receive to compensate for the injuries they received in the military. Those on the older war pension scheme, which could cover awards from the second world war up to 2005, receive far less support. Only £10 of their war pension is automatically disregarded, and the rest can be clawed back by local authorities into paying for their standard social care. The full value of the war pension—which of course reflects the level of disablement suffered by that veteran—is on average £80 a week and can be as much as several hundred pounds a week for the most severely injured Does the Minister agree that it does not show enormous respect to veterans on the war pension scheme, who have fought in conflicts from the second world war to Korea, the Falklands and in some cases as recently as Afghanistan, if we suggest that the pain of those disabling injuries is worth only £10 a week? What compounds that regrettable diminishment of the veterans’ sacrifice is the apparent injustice and inconsistency in the way the two schemes are treated in social care and the way different arms of Government look at the problem Almost all local authorities use their discretion fully to exempt the income from both compensation schemes when council tax or housing benefit is calculated, and central Government have recognised that both types of compensation should be left untouched when the new universal credit is calculated for recipients who have served in the forces. Yet protecting that income for council tax and housing benefit will be in vain if the great majority of it is then lost to pay for social care. As I have said, Government guidelines only disregard £10 of the war pension, and in present circumstances local authorities have not been able to go much further, with only 12% of councils using discretionary funding fully to exempt those on the older scheme. That is completely inconsistent with the way that civilian personal injury compensation is treated in social care means-testing. When saved in a trust fund, that income is fully disregarded by local authorities as they calculate care costs. What is left appears to be a social care system that, however worthy its objectives, fails to meet two criteria of the armed forces covenant that Members from both sides of the House were proud to support.