Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the Government’s plans to tackle suicide among veterans.
Answered by Leo Docherty
The Government is clear that any suicide is a tragedy and is fully committed to tackling suicide among veterans. In September 2021, we announced a new method for recording veteran suicide. We expect the first reports from this data to be available in 2023.
Concurrent to that work, the MOD, ONS and OVA are working collaboratively to publish a 10-year lookback on veteran deaths through suicide, alcohol misuse and drug abuse. Having a better understanding of the number of veterans taking their own lives will help inform future policy and interventions in support of veterans.
Our ambition is to ensure that no veteran’s request for help goes unanswered. The veterans' mental health and wellbeing service, Op COURAGE, was allocated £17.8million funding last year and an extra £2.7million over the next three years. Further, we are supporting veteran-friendly accreditation for GPs and veteran-aware training for social work teams.
Additional funding has been awarded to service charities involved in supporting the mental health of veterans, such as through the £5million Afghanistan Veterans Fund, as well as an additional £10 million to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent progress has made on (a) delivering on the aims of the Places for Growth Programme and (b) employing more civil servants outside of London.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
More than 2,000 Civil Service jobs have already been relocated from Greater London.
Places for Growth is contributing towards the Declaration on Government Reform and Levelling Up agenda by significantly increasing the geographic spread of Civil Servants across the UK, increasing opportunities for people from a wider range of places and closing the distance between national and local decision-makers. This is being delivered by moving 15,000 Civil Service roles out of Greater London by 2025.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to support veterans with mental health needs.
Answered by Leo Docherty
Our ambition is to ensure that no veteran’s request for help goes unanswered. The veterans' mental health and wellbeing service, Op COURAGE, has been allocated £17.8m funding this year and will benefit from a boost of £2.7m over the next three years. The Prime Minister recently announced an additional £5 million for service charities following the UK's withdrawal from Afghanistan, which will be used on a range of projects including increasing capacity in mental health support. In March, the government also announced an additional £10 million to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to distribute to charitable projects supporting veterans’ mental health needs. This is on top of the annual £10 million awarded to the Trust.
The upcoming ‘Strategy for our Veterans Action Plan’ will further outline the Government’s plans to support veterans.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to support veterans with housing needs.
Answered by Leo Docherty
This year, we have committed £750 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping - aiming to end rough sleeping within the parliament.
I am committed to providing veterans with a gold standard of support; that means services that are easily accessed and which meet veterans needs. We have already taken steps to improve veterans access to social housing, removing the local connection requirement and giving vulnerable veterans priority access, and I look forward to announcing further steps later this year when I publish the Veterans Strategy Action Plan.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent progress the Government has made on the Places for Growth programme.
Answered by Michael Ellis
As part of Budget 2020, the Government committed to moving 22,000 Civil Service roles out of central London within the next decade. These roles will be moving to locations across the UK, including Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff, Darlington and Wolverhampton. 11 departments have announced their location plans so far.
Places for Growth is working closely with Government departments as part of the Spending Review and has early commitments to move up to 15,000 Civil Service roles by 2024/25. Additional plans for the relocation of roles will be finalised in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the timeframe is for publishing the White Paper on Devolution in England.
Answered by Chloe Smith
We will publish a landmark Levelling Up White Paper later this year, articulating how bold new policy interventions will improve opportunity and boost livelihoods across the country as we recover from the pandemic.