War Widows’ Association of Great Britain

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, on obtaining this debate. I was going to congratulate him on happily achieving it on the day of the service, but he modestly told me this morning that that was not necessarily so. However, I am extremely glad that we have this opportunity to pay tribute to the War Widows’ Association on the very day that it held the moving service I was fortunate enough to attend.

I want to mention two things about that service. First, perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, the indefatigable president of the association, that she read Sir William Tyndall’s timeless translation of “Corinthians” about charity quite beautifully. It is something that I shall never forget. Secondly, I was sitting alongside a window whose inauguration I shall also never forget. It is in commemoration of a young grenadier who was killed in Belfast in 1980 when he was commanding my SAS troop. I remember its unveiling and the dignity of his young wife widowed in the first year of marriage. It was moving to be sitting alongside that particular window.

Those of us who have had the privilege of serving in the Armed Forces have come across colleagues and friends who early in their career have left widows. I am extremely grateful that the noble Viscount mentioned the problems of those who risk losing their pension because of marrying and cohabiting. I remember two colleagues in particular. One was killed in Aden three weeks after leaving the staff college, where for a year we had lived opposite each other. He left a wife and two young children, who had the most terrible problems trying to look after them. Another was the widow of a colleague who died on Bloody Sunday, after being shot in Londonderry six months before. In order to be able to bring up her children, she could not afford to give up her widow’s pension. It is timely to bring these things out.

I also warmly support the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, about the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act. It seems quite wrong that the charities and others which are trying to help people are having difficulty obtaining information that will enable them to contact the people who need help. Something is wrong here and it needs to be put right.

I want to say a few words about the context of the Armed Forces covenant, which is totally new to me, because in all my service it did not exist; there was no such thing. Indeed, “Armed Forces covenant” is a very new phrase. A military covenant has been talked about in the Army for the past three or four years, but is unknown to and unrecognised by the Navy and the Royal Air Force. I do not wish to appear to carp, but I must admit that one word makes me slightly cross when I read the introduction to the thing. It talks about rebuilding the Armed Forces covenant, but we are not rebuilding anything; it has never been there before. “Rebuilding” defines something that has been bust and requires repair. What we actually require is a covenant to be built—to be made. It would be much more dignified if we dropped the word “rebuilding” and set about trying to develop the covenant as it ought to be.

I draw attention to one aspect of each of the three parts that illustrates what I mean. The Armed Forces covenant itself describes the levels of support on page 5. The greatest level of support is due to those who are “bereaved due to Service”. That implies that the most should happen for them. However, the second document, The Armed Forces Covenant: Today and Tomorrow, far from listing all the support to bereaved families has two pages that are very largely given over to discussing what help they might need from the inquest advice service when they go to an inquest. I suggest that there is a disconnect here. I seriously believe that any support that needs to be given to bereaved families, who are listed right at the heart of the covenant, needs to be spelled out much more clearly.

Recommendation 4.3.2.d in the third document, The Government’s Response to the Report of the Task Force on the Military Covenant, refers to,

“a ‘shopping list’ of areas of greatest need”.

I ask the Government whether, in close contact with the War Widows’ Association, they could draw up a shopping list of what the association recognises to be the areas of greatest need, insert them into the covenant and then set out in the covenant that the Secretary of State should be required to report every year to Parliament on how that shopping list is being met. It seems to me that that would be the best way in which to repay the debt that we owe to these remarkable people, whose bravery and fortitude, frankly, I admire and am humbled by every day.