UK Veterans Administration

Louise Mensch Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for offering me the opportunity to debate a matter that I know will be of particular concern not only to Members of the House, but to the entire country.

The ceremonies of Remembrance Sunday are fresh in our minds. I know that most hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon will have had the honour of recently laying a wreath in their own constituencies—in my case, under the auspices of our amazing branch of the Royal British Legion in Corby and east Northamptonshire. It is perhaps appropriate that time has been made to debate how our country treats its veterans, and whether we have the prospect of a better model in front of us, in this month of November. It is my contention that the UK needs a fully fledged veterans administration.

A great opportunity lies before the Government, and I am full of hope because both in the manner of their conception, and the way they have governed since, the coalition Government have eschewed the piecemeal. Things are not being done by halves. They are a Government of big ideas, sweeping reforms and profound change. From the universal credit to free schools, from the spending review to the alternative vote referendum, the Government, like the infant Hercules strangling the serpents, have not failed to grasp nettles and do things differently, even in their earliest days.

Our veterans need things to be done differently. I am sure that all Members support the amazing work of the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes, whose wrist band I am wearing today, ABF The Soldiers’ Charity and the plethora of other worthy military charities operating in our country. However, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Minister will be aware, there is a great feeling out there among the public that it is shameful that our veterans rely so greatly on voluntary bodies and charitable giving.

As a candidate, I was heartened to see my party campaign on restoring the military covenant, and now, as a coalition Back-Bench Member, I welcome all the various steps the Government have taken for our troops—for example, the doubling of the operational allowance and the military covenant being sealed in statute. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, as almost one of his first acts in office, announced a welcome review by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) into mental health care for veterans. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Education has announced that the pupil premium will apply to the children of military families, and to great acclaim has recently announced a troops to teachers programme, bringing ex-servicemen’s expertise and valour into the classroom, so that they can benefit the nation’s children.

All of that, taken as a package, is extremely heartening. However, I urge the Minister to consider whether the Government’s efforts on behalf of troops and veterans do not point the way to a more comprehensive and unitary approach and a single co-ordinating veterans administration taking care of everything, rather than to the provision of piecemeal help from individual Departments.

I shall return to the theme that I took up in my maiden speech, because the matter is so important to me. The UK is the only country in the English-speaking world not to have a veterans administration, veterans department or something similar, and that is a rebuke to this House. New Zealand has Veterans’ Affairs New Zealand, with its own dedicated Minister; Australia and Canada both have Departments of Veterans’ Affairs; and of course the United States has the gold standard in the Veterans’ Administration.

In an article written for the website Conservative Home about his review of mental health care on behalf of the Government, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire said:

“Throughout my review I have been struck by the almost grudging beneficence of past British governments towards uniformed men and women in stark contrast with that of other nations, particularly our Anglophone partners. I doubt our warriors will ever enjoy the hero worship that Uncle Sam lavishes on America’s finest”.

But why should that be? Since they are every bit as heroic—many of us would say more so—why should they not enjoy it? I urge the Government to go further than their already welcome efforts have. It is not simply a matter of cost. It is true that the budget for the US Veterans’ Administration is a monstrous $87 billion—and because a good politician is a pragmatic politician, I am not asking the Government to go in that direction—but the budget for the Canadian Department of Veterans’ Affairs is only 3.4 billion Canadian dollars. In this country, however, what is first required is not excessive extra cost, but merely co-ordination. The original United States Veterans’ Administration was founded in 1930 with a mission to

“consolidate and co-ordinate Government activities affecting war veterans”.

And we need nothing more in this country.

Today, we have the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency, but I regret to say that it is nothing like enough. The SPVA was created in 2007. In its own words, there are

“many organisations…from Government and the voluntary sector”

that provide help to veterans. Describing that scattergun approach, the SPVA says:

“This can at times be confusing for those seeking help as they are unsure about which organisations provide what services.”

I regret that that quotation is verbatim. The SPVA website, Veterans-UK, is supposedly the first portal through which our veterans are meant to access its services. It is an embarrassment, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is that really the best that we can do for our veterans, our serving troops and their dependants? If, as a soldier, you want to go online and find out why you are not entitled to priority in local housing—unless you are Welsh—this website is for you; and should you wish to be directed to a number of charities, which may or may not be able to help, this is for you. Anyone wishing to look up the Government’s apparent “review of veterans policy”, which the site is linked to, will be directed to the Minster for Veterans—no, not my hon. and gallant Friend on the Front Bench this afternoon, but a smiling photograph of my colleague on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), who has not been the Minister for more than four years. That is the level of service that this country currently offers.

Written answers to questions from Members from all parties, in all parts of the House, including the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who had such a long-standing interest in veterans’ affairs, have revealed, for example, a lack of data kept on the number of ex-servicemen in prison. Another answer showed that no estimate of the cost of family breakdown arising from veterans’ mental health problems has been made. Far too many written answers from the Ministry of Defence concentrate on charities. The world is starting to notice. Sergeant Neil Duffy recently returned his medals to the Prime Minister in a protest over benefits cuts that had left him suicidal. That was apparently down to a Department for Work and Pensions error, but a co-ordinating veterans administration would have avoided any confusion between military benefits and civilian entitlements.

On 4 November, The Economist ran an article condemning our country’s veterans provision, writing that

“a lavish American-style GI Bill of Rights is unlikely”—

and nor, I should emphasise, am I asking for one this afternoon—and quoting the director general of the British Legion as saying that he plans for

“a bow-wave of demand for our welfare support”.

The Economist, I hope like the House, concludes that, in honouring our war dead, we

“ought perhaps to think also of a future that, for some servicemen, is likely to be bleak”

There are many things that a veterans agency could do that would cost the Government absolutely nothing at all. Had I won the ballot on private Members’ Bills, I would have introduced a Bill making it illegal to discriminate against a member of Her Majesty’s forces on the grounds that he or she is wearing the Queen’s uniform. I would like to see a drive, led by the Government, on cultural change, perhaps through education programmes in schools and public information programmes, to develop practices such as those that I witnessed when living in the United States with my ex-husband for several years, where military personnel are regularly thanked for their service. When I have taken the opportunity, as a Member of this House, to thank troops whom I have come across for their service, I am often told that nobody has ever thanked them before. Surely that is a crying shame.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire will, in the end, be surprised, because our troops deserve all the honour—all the hero-worship—that the Americans render to theirs. I hope that the Minister this afternoon will consider creating a fully fledged, co-ordinating veterans administration or department, bringing the UK into line with the rest of the English-speaking world. He is not only a Minister, but a distinguished former soldier. May I therefore take this opportunity to thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his service, and to commend this project to him, as the final seal on restoring the military covenant, to which my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State are so committed?