Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Sunderland and Andrew Murrison

Monday 11th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

Clearly, we want to improve service accommodation all the time. However, 97% of service accommodation meets or exceeds the decent home standard. That is admirable compared with the record of many local authorities. We are investing in accommodation, and it is improving all the time. I very much regret the occasional report of accommodation that falls short of the mark, and we seek to rectify it as soon as we can.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

We have heard this afternoon how important the continuity of education allowance is for service families. Does the Minister assess that Labour’s proposed attack on private schools will make it easier or harder to educate service children?

[Dr Murrison]

It would certainly make it far more expensive. It would also threaten small schools like Warminster School in my constituency, which relies very much on service families. I just reflect on the sacrifices made by all people I know who choose to send their children to independent schools, and in particular members of the defence community who are of course required to make a substantial contribution to their children’s education in the event that they choose to educate them in the independent sector.

Veterans: Handforth

Debate between James Sunderland and Andrew Murrison

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I start by declaring my interest as a veteran and an active reservist. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on securing the debate and the way in which she has presented it. I know she has a deep interest in veterans’ affairs, which shines through, and she has been a passionate advocate for her Handforth constituents and veterans in general. Her aim is to make life better for the men and women who put themselves in harm’s way in the service of our country, and I certainly share that goal.

My right hon. Friend reflected thoughtfully on the question of what we might call signposting. At the time of my first stint as a Defence Minister a decade ago, there was an impenetrable maze of veteran provisions without any realistic road map for navigating it. It was bitty—I think that was the term that my right hon. Friend used. In the meantime, there have been significant improvements, although I am the first to admit that we are not there yet. The MOD actively supports vulnerable service leavers to make the most successful transition possible to civilian life, building on the substantial skills and experience they have accrued in the armed forces.

I am bound to represent to my right hon. Friend the Veterans’ Gateway, which offers a pretty good first point of contact for all former personnel and their families who need access to both the state and charitable sectors. It offers help with pretty much everything, from finances to families, housing to health and independent living to mental wellbeing, and I really commend it. We should all be concerned about delays in getting assistance to veterans, which my right hon. Friend touched on. Ideally, there should be no gap between the request for and the provision of help. Realistically, the system caters for approximately 1.85 million veterans, each with individual issues that may or may not be related to service and requiring different contact with myriad organisations, from Government and local authorities to the charitable sector. To give an idea of the scale of the work, some 450,000 veterans receive an armed forces pension—happily, me included—and last year the veterans’ welfare service handled calls from almost 40,000 people.

Unfortunately, even with the best efforts of the dedicated staff who fill out the forms and operate the phone lines, people can slip through the net; usually we hear from them, not from those who are satisfied with the service they receive. I have visited Norcross near Blackpool to talk to those whose job it is to manage those sometimes quite difficult calls, and I have been impressed by a couple of things: first by their longevity in the job, and secondly by the sense of dedication they have to servicing the needs of their clients’ community. Claims for compensation, for example, have long been hampered by a reliance on paper records—a theme that I have talked about before. The staff at Norcross operate in, frankly, an outdated environment that does not match their commitment and expertise. We need to do away with all those paper records. While it may sound boring, I am convinced that those paper records are at the heart of some of the delays we have seen. They are not the only reason, and I am more than happy to describe at greater length the cause of those delays, but we must drag the systems at Norcross kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

[James Sunderland]

The Minister will recall that we met earlier this year in the all-party parliamentary group on veterans and discussed the much-needed reform of Veterans UK. As part of his closing address, or perhaps in the near future, is he able to provide an update to the House on where we are with the review of Veterans UK and any subsequent work that needs to be done?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He and I have discussed this before. I am afraid that I will not be able to show very much ankle on this occasion, but in my remarks I will certainly touch on where we are with the two commissioned reviews, which will improve matters as part of the process I described. In the meantime, we have invested £40 million to digitally transform veterans’ services and phase out paper, which is so much impeding the quality of the service we want to offer our veterans. We are introducing online verification, which will make it much quicker and easier to establish veteran status, and that is also why we have introduced the reviews to which my hon. Friend refers.

There have been calls for medical checks when people leave active service to allow for the early spotting of traumatic brain injuries, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton rightly touched on. It is an issue that I, as a military medic, have a long-standing interest in. Remarkably, in Afghanistan a British combat soldier was likely to face exposure to between six and nine improvised explosive device explosions, with the consequent risk of mild traumatic brain injury. That is a staggering figure.

Moderate to severe traumatic brain injury should be detected at the time of injury and managed accordingly. The diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury is generally made clinically on referral to the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Stanford Hall, which operates a dedicated treatment programme for TBI of all levels of severity.

As for medical assessments conducted at discharge, their purpose is to assess and record the physical and mental health status of individuals at point of departure. All episodes of ill health during service will be reviewed at that time, and an assessment will be made and recorded about whether there has been any interaction between health and work. Our duty of care to people is principally to ensure that any disadvantage that they have suffered as a result of their service is remedied as best we can; that is at the heart of the military covenant, as my right hon. Friend will well appreciate. That assessment, at that time, is part of that duty.

The real sticking point here is that mild TBI is generally not visible on routine clinical imaging. The US has something called magnetoencephalography, which it has deployed to try to detect who has mild TBI and who does not. We have our own Independent Medical Expert Group that assesses these things, and it has assessed magnetoencephalography twice. It has found that magnetoencephalography is not sensitive and specific enough to be of use as a screening test at the moment, but naturally it keeps all evidence under review and that position may well change. In the meantime, our own Defence Medical Services is part of a national civilian and military collaboration called mTBI-Predict, and that is looking for reliable biomarkers, which may include—but are not confined to—magnetoencephalography.

I turn to the possibility of rewording the armed forces covenant to encourage authorities to treat veterans as a priority more energetically. I share my right hon. Friend’s appreciation of the value of our armed forces covenant. Indeed, I wrote the book on it 12 years ago, which is sadly now out of print, although a colleague said he had seen a copy recently in a charity shop. He then went on to spoil the story by saying that he did not bother buying it! Nevertheless, I am particularly proud that this Government, in their very early days, put the covenant into legislation—at about the time that I was writing my book—and that organisations are now able to sign up to it, as so many have, including all local authorities in Great Britain.

We should not forget that the covenant is not about advantaging members of the armed forces community; it is not about placing them at the front of the queue or mandating outcomes. I do not think that is what veterans and the service community want. The covenant is about ensuring that people are not disadvantaged by virtue of having served. That “no disadvantage” enjoinder lies at the very heart of the covenant we have built.

The Armed Forces Act 2021 introduced a new statutory duty to promote better outcomes for the armed forces community when accessing key public services. That duty came into force in November 2022. It requires certain public bodies to have due regard to the covenant’s principles when carrying out specific functions in the key areas of housing, healthcare and education. In other words, it is there to give veterans a fairer hearing and to ensure that service providers have the needs of the armed forces community in mind when making policy decisions. We will evaluate the impact of the new legislation as it beds in; we will report on it annually in the armed forces covenant and veterans annual report; and in any event, as we are bound by statute, we will report on it formally after five years.

All service people, from private soldiers to Chief of the Defence Staff, come to defence from civilian life, and to civilian life they will return. Preparing for that inevitability is not something that should happen in a rush in someone’s last few weeks spent in uniform, but from day one. That is why accredited training, skills and education are so important and is why issues like facilitating spousal employment and encouraging personnel to buy their own homes early have been, and will continue to be, firmly in our sights.

I would like to sound a cautionary note. The tabloid press likes to suggest that the veteran living in a cardboard box underneath the arches is typical. That is a complete 180° reversal of the truth. Overwhelmingly, our service leavers transition brilliantly, as one might expect considering that they are resourceful, enabled individuals with in-demand skills and attributes, but there are exceptions and we should be constantly kicking the tyres to see what more we can do to maximise the resilience of our service leavers.

Our holistic transition policy, published in October 2019, was designed to better co-ordinate and manage service personnel and their families transitioning from military to civilian life. Whether that means helping with the basics, such as registering with a doctor, or offering more intensive assistance for those with complex needs including those related to housing, budgeting, debt, wellbeing, employment and children’s education, it is there for them. Holistic transition builds on the success of the career transition partnership, which has provided employment support and job finding services for the last 20 years. Last year, 87% of service leavers were employed within six months of leaving their service. I want that to improve, but that is 12% higher than the UK employment rate, which validates the remarks I made about the majority of our service leavers being in a good position by virtue of having served. The holistic transition policy gives tailored interventions to service leavers assessed as needing extra help. That is done through the defence transition service. It is one to one, provides tailored information and guidance and facilitates access to support services, including from other Government Departments, local authorities, the NHS and trusted charities.

I underscore the contribution of charities. Some disparage charities and say that it is all the responsibility of the state. I disagree. I think our service charities do an absolutely fantastic job and need to be encouraged in what they do.

Mindful of the compensation touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton, in July the Ministry of Defence and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs published a review of the Government’s veterans’ welfare services alongside the statutory quinquennial review of the armed forces compensation scheme. I will not pre-empt the Government’s response to the reviews. That will come later this year—I hope very much not too much later. Suffice to say, those reviews prove that the only way to meet our aspiration of making the UK a truly great place to be a veteran is to continue to listen to what they say, both directly and through their elected representatives as in this debate.

A fortnight ago, I was honoured to be asked to speak in Kyiv at a conference for veterans hosted by the Government of Ukraine. I am pleased that a country that will, as a result of Putin’s aggression, have a large number of veterans, some with the most complex of needs, should, at both ministerial and official level, be looking to the UK for advice and looking at our structures as it works out what it should now do. I find endorsement in that and I am humbled by it.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Sunderland and Andrew Murrison

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the range of mental health support services that are open to our veterans, particularly Op Courage and, he will be interested to note, Op Fortitude. Of course, there is always more we can do, particularly for those who have suffered as a result of their service, but I think it important to say that, in general, service in our armed forces is a positive for mental health, not a negative.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I accept that we will hear a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office statement in due course, but given the events over the weekend, what assessment has the MOD made of Ukraine’s ability to win in Ukraine?

Operation Telic

Debate between James Sunderland and Andrew Murrison

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I very much welcome the opportunity that the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) has provided to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the start of Operation Telic. I want to begin by paying tribute to him, both for his own outstanding service and for his deeply moving tribute to those with whom he served and the veterans he champions.

For me, too, Iraq is personal. Somewhat ironically, having opposed the war here, I was recalled to serve as a battle group medical officer during Telic 2. I have expressed my feelings about the Iraq war on a number of occasions and I will not rehearse them again today. Suffice it to say that lessons learned were dearly bought. Even now, Sir John Chilcot’s landmark inquiry is helping to set the contours for the way we see discretionary, expeditionary warfare. I think it is fair to say that few of us at the time anticipated the long shadows that would be cast by Operations Telic and Herrick.

Whatever one’s views of the wisdom and judgment of those who preceded us, it is unarguable that our brave men and women stepped up to the plate as only soldiers, sailors and aviators can. Despite enormous pressure, they went on to do remarkable things. It is their service and sacrifice that I want to reflect on tonight, as the hon. Gentleman did. As I do so, and as a Wiltshire MP who represents a garrison town, I remember the silence—the silence of Royal Wootton Bassett as the flag-draped coffins rolled by.

Of course, we make decisions in this place that change lives all the time, but the consequences of some are more stark—more vivid—than others. As the hon. Gentleman remarked, Operation Telic involved a vast military effort. It was one of the largest deployments since the end of world war two and involved all three services. Some 46,000 troops were deployed, among them 9,500 reservists. The UK sent 19 warships, 14 Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service vessels, 15,000 vehicles, 115 fixed-wing aircraft and nearly 100 helicopters. They in turn were supported in the United Kingdom and elsewhere by an army of civilians and contractors. Many of those individuals would never have experienced a conflict remotely like this one. Some would have served as peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo. Some would even have taken part in the first Gulf war to liberate Kuwait, yet that conflict was won within 42 days. This one dragged on for years.

Yet, as I recall, in the early days, hopes had been high for a swift resolution thanks to an impressive series of lightning successes. Overcoming stiff resistance, our forces achieved their first objective at the port of Umm Qasr. They then moved on to take Basra, Iraq’s second largest city. Again, the 7th Armoured Brigade, the famous Desert Rats, despite participating in the biggest tank battle by UK forces since the second world war and despite constant harrying from Iraqi regular troops and Fedayeen militia, emerged victorious. Within a month, the UK, alongside its coalition allies, had accomplished nearly all its military goals. The brutal dictator Saddam Hussein had fled. His regime had evaporated. Key infrastructure had been secured. And cheering crowds congregated on Baghdad streets to welcome coalition forces and topple Saddam’s vainglorious statute into the dust. Meanwhile, stringent targeting and unprecedented use of precision weapons had kept UK and Iraqi casualties to a minimum.

But that was the high point. As the late Sir John Chilcot documented in his report, there had been a shocking lack of preparation for regime change. What followed was a bitter and bloody insurgency. Mobs murdered Royal Military police. An RAF Hercules was shot out of the sky. Soldiers were ambushed by snipers. Fighters were attacked with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The improvised explosive device became a staple of the news bulletins. Borne by vehicles, buried in the ground or dumped in piles of rubbish, the notorious IEDs claimed and maimed many lives. By the time the UK left in 2011, thousands had been wounded and 179 British troops had paid the ultimate price. Today, our thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones of all who lost their lives and who suffered life-changing injuries.

[James Sunderland]

Our armed forces bear arms voluntarily through choice and because of the duty they have in doing their job. But it is not just about being told what to do; it is also because they believe in that particular cause. May I ask the Minister, on that very serious point, to confirm to the House that, for all future operations and all future decisions taken to deploy armed forces in possible expeditionary warfare, that rigour will be employed with every decision, we will not take that good will for granted, and there will be a very good reason for the use of force?

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, of course; as a soldier, he knows full well the horrors of war and what war means. No Government would join battle willingly and, as I said in my early remarks, lessons have been learned from this pair of conflicts that we have had in the 21st century. Only a very imprudent Government would embark upon such an initiative or initiatives now, knowing what we now know about the nature and consequences of this kind of operation and the long shadow that it casts—in the case of Iraq, of course, we are living with it still. Some, I am afraid, live with it more than others.

Twenty years on, the Iraq war remains deeply controversial and contested. Whether it was for good or ill, the decisions taken then have continued to shape our attitude to military interventionism. Yet although we can continue to debate the politics, what is not up for discussion is the fact that the soldiers, sailors and aviators of Operation Telic at no point gave less than their all. Those who wear the Iraq campaign medal should do so with pride. It is also worth reflecting that today Iraq and the UK share a close and enduring bond, as well as a determination to defeat Daesh finally and for good, and a desire to enjoy peace and stability.

This afternoon, I had the very great privilege of laying a wreath at the Iraq and Afghanistan memorial that stands just outside the MOD main building. It is a powerful sculpture, carved out of Portland stone—unusual in that it contains no names of the fallen. In fact, only two words are etched on to its smooth surface: “duty” and “service”. The veterans of Operation Telic did their duty. Their service was exemplary. They were, and remain, the very best of us.

Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees Bill

Debate between James Sunderland and Andrew Murrison

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Murrison]

This Bill is intended to regularise what has become custom and practice. There is nothing particularly new here, but the Bill does give VAPCs, which we have decided are worthwhile, a statutory basis. I hope the Bill will be seen in that light.

Under this legislation, VAPCs would have a statutory remit to do more than engage locally with recipients of war pensions or the armed forces compensation scheme. They will cover a broader range of issues; they may, for example, gauge veterans’ views on the support they receive from the Veterans Welfare Service, and raising awareness of the armed forces covenant. I hope the Committee will accept that the Government’s intent, through the legislation and the various reviews under way, is to ensure that the interests of veterans are furthered. That Government are sensitive to their concerns about how they are dealt with under the armed forces covenant.

The VAPCs will provide the Ministry of Defence and the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs with a source of independent advice about how the MOD should support veterans and their families. Families are very important in this. One of the changes that the legislation will certainly bring is a focus not just on war pensioners and recipients of benefits under the armed forces compensation scheme but families and the wider defence community. I should highlight that the Bill also allows for recommendations to be adopted from the ongoing independent review of the VAPCs under the Cabinet Office public bodies reform programme, which is due to report at the end of this month, and from the recently announced independent review of the role and scope of the Government’s welfare provision for veterans, including by the MOD under the Veterans UK banner.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, which reflected the perfectly understandable concern that there is a lot going on at the moment, and that there is a risk of overlap. I hope that the timeline that I have given, and the fact that this is enabling legislation—further regulations would have to be made as statutory instruments—mean that, in reality, the whole thing is pretty much covered off. Of course, rather than running these things in parallel, we could have run them in series, but I am persuaded that we need to crack on with this issue, and I do not necessarily want one to follow the other.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and to Mr Gray for allowing an intervention—I am conscious of falling foul of the tube strike this morning. Having chaired the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, I have taken a huge interest in the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy, and I commend him on bringing it forward, because it covers the things that we did not quite get to in that Committee. Does the Minister agree that what is exciting about the Bill is not the statutory change itself, but the opportunities now available to the VAPCs? The Bill is about giving them some teeth, and perhaps also holding Veterans UK to account.

[Dr Murrison]

Yes, and that was the subject of one of the amendments that we discussed earlier. The Bill will give the committees teeth—that is the intent—so it will make the veterans’ voice louder in this domain.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport rightly made the point about terms of reference. VAPCs will sit within the Ministry of Defence’s remit, so the terms of reference will rest with the MOD rather than the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. He also made a point about websites, which had not struck me, but I am sure that VAPCs will have heard what he said. I do not want to mandate how they do their business, and there is a balance to be struck between their independence and what the MOD would like. I have a natural instinct towards regularising stuff, but in this instance it is important to give them a little wriggle room to do their comms piece as they see fit. The hon. Member’s point is well made, and I hope that those who are perhaps doing less well will have heard what he said.

Mr Gray, you will be delighted to hear that I have taken a red pen to a lot of my speech, because having sensed that the Committee is broadly content with the Bill, I do not see any point in dragging out the Committee, but I want to make a quick comment about the devolved Administrations. The committees will work closely, as they do now, with the devolved Administrations, and as they become aware of issues, they can raise them with Ministers. Ministers can then direct their officials, as they do now, to work with their devolved counterparts on the issues and find a workable solution. My general experience of working with the devolved Administrations in the area for which I am responsible has been positive.

I conclude by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy for his hard work on the Bill, for which I am extremely grateful, and the enthusiasm with which he has approached the task. The Bill has our wholehearted support, and I commend it to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Sunderland and Andrew Murrison

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady will be aware of the career transition partnership. She will be aware too of the special arrangements for veterans who are unfortunately ill or injured to get them into civilian life in a seamless way and provide them with the skills they need for the rest of their lives. It is important to understand that all servicemen and servicewomen are civilians in waiting. They all return to the communities from which they are drawn, and throughout their careers they have preparation to enable them to do so in as seamless a fashion as possible with the skills that they need.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

The Minister will know that the all-party parliamentary group on veterans is currently running a survey of the experience of veterans across the UK when claiming compensation, war pensions and other fiscal support from Veterans UK. That survey closes tomorrow. Will he please agree to meet me to discuss its findings and, depending on what they are, will he also agree in principle to any measures that better assure the outputs of Veterans UK?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for his chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group on veterans and for the survey that he has undertaken. I am very much looking forward to the results of that survey. He will be aware that the MOD does a variety of surveys and canvassing, to ensure that we are giving our serving personnel and our veterans and their families what they need to pursue their careers and to ensure that their lived experience is positive. I am very much looking forward to what his group has to say, and of course I will meet him.

Royal Navy: Conduct towards Women

Debate between James Sunderland and Andrew Murrison

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman knows from his own background the importance of these matters, and I welcome the expertise he is able to bring to the House. People who are in positions of responsibility must not abuse those who are potentially subject to their predations. The teaching profession has implemented changes in recent years to the relationship between teachers and children, and Defence is taking note of that. He refers to recruits under the age of 18, who are minors and are in a similar position, so he can be assured that we are closely considering how we can emulate the situation that now pertains to civilian education, so that it properly applies in a defence setting. He also touched on the Henriques report: the bulk of those recommendations were carried out, although I suspect we could have a debate about the three most serious offences, but Defence’s position remains that they should be a matter for the service justice system.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the Minister to his place. As the Chair of the recent Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, a regular officer for 26 years and now a senior veteran, I can tell the House with some authority that our armed forces are full of brilliant people at all ranks and levels. In the interest of balance, and noting how far the MOD has come in recent decades in dealing with such sordid behaviour, I urge the Minister to maintain a sense of pragmatism and proportionality. Rather than saying that the forces have an endemic problem, I think this is indicative of individual poor behaviour and the inquiry must look accordingly.

[Dr Murrison]

I think I touched on that subject when I referred to the Select Committee’s report and the positive comments it made about the experience of most women in our armed forces. We must not put people off joining our armed forces unduly, but equally we must take these allegations very seriously.