Amendment 31

Part of Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill - Committee (2nd Day) – in the House of Lords at 5:45 pm on 11 March 2021.

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Photo of Baroness Goldie Baroness Goldie Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip), The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence 5:45, 11 March 2021

My Lords, this has been an important debate, and I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, for his careful presentation of his amendment, which covers a very important issue. I also thank him for his supportive commentary on the Bill.

Amendment 31 proposes that the Ministry of Defence should establish a “duty of care standard” for current and former service personnel and, where appropriate, their families, and that the Secretary of State should be required to report on this annually. I have looked at the specific components of the amendment, and I hope that I may be able to provide some reassurance to the noble Lord and those other noble Lords who raised genuine concerns.

I start by saying that we take extremely seriously our duty of care; the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, rightly identified that important component of how the MoD deals with its personnel. We do take it extremely seriously; we have a duty of care to our personnel, and pastoral and practical support will always be available to them. In particular, veterans of events that happened a long time ago may have particular support requirements and concerns, in which case we can put in place special arrangements for them.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, spoke eloquently about the effect on personnel of repeated investigations and accusations, as did the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, my noble friend Lord Faulks and, just recently, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. We have a responsibility to take reasonable care to ensure the safety and well-being of our personnel.

I covered the comprehensive legal support that we already provide to service personnel and veterans in relation to legal proceedings during our previous debate, so I will not repeat them here. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, was rightly concerned about such provision, but I trust that, if he looks at the remarks that I made in the earlier debate, he may feel reassured.

In terms of mental health, welfare and pastoral care, a range of organisations are involved in fulfilling the needs of personnel, which will vary according to individual need and circumstance. The potential impact of operations on a serviceperson’s mental health is well recognised; the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, spoke powerfully about that. There are policies and procedures in place to help manage and mitigate these impacts as far as possible.

Despite the clear processes for categorising personnel as medically suitable for deployment, it is recognised that an operational deployment can result in the development of a medical or psychiatric condition. Therefore, specific policy and mandated processes exist for the management of mental health and well-being before, during and after deployment. These provide overarching direction on the provision of deployment-related mental health and well-being, with briefings designed to provide enough information about deployment-related mental ill-health to allow individuals, peers and family members to take steps to avoid such an outcome, to recognise the early signs of mental ill-health and to facilitate help-seeking from the right source at the right time.

We also regularly seek opinions from Armed Forces personnel and their families about the level of support. It is important to refer to that, because the MoD is not operating in some kind of vacuum; we actually have very good communication strands with our Armed Forces personnel, and I will cover a number of them. The Armed Forces continuous attitude survey—AFCAS—is an annual survey of a random sample of service personnel. The 2021 survey was conducted from September 2020 to February of this year, and the results are due to be published in May. There are no specific questions relating to legal proceedings, but questions related to welfare support are asked.

Within the welfare section of the survey, questions are asked on satisfaction with the welfare support provided by the service for both the serviceperson and their family, as well as the support that the serviceperson’s spouse or partner receives while the serviceperson is absent. Questions are also asked about operational deployment welfare package for service personnel.

Questions on satisfaction levels with the variety of welfare support systems in place are also asked, with the list unique to each service—for example, families federations, welfare teams, officers, community support teams, et cetera. Further questions within the deployment section ask for satisfaction levels with welfare support received by both service personnel and their families when the serviceperson returns from their last operational deployment. We also have the annual families continuous attitudes survey—FAMCAS—for the spouses and civil partners of service personnel. It is in field from January to April and the 2021 report is scheduled for release in July. Again, there are no specific questions on legal support.

Another avenue is available to all MoD personnel, whether Armed Forces or civilian: the regular all-staff dial-ins. Some of your Lordships may be unfamiliar with this; I must confess that, until I became a Minister, I had not heard of them. Having now participated in a couple of these, I have to say that they are an incredibly popular forum. They attract participants from the Armed Forces and the civilian staff, and the contributors are uninhibited in expressing their views and concerns. I think that over 3,000 participants were on my last call. That is another way of quickly getting feedback on how morale is and what people are feeling.

It is not just serving members of the Armed Forces who require and receive such support. As I have mentioned, our veterans also get such support. Veterans UK is the official provider of welfare services and support to former service personnel throughout the UK. It will often act in partnership with service charities or other third-sector organisations towards which veterans are directed—for example, the Royal British Legion, Combat Stress and SSAFA, which is the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association.

Very often, the regimental association of a veteran’s parent regiment will be the most familiar and accessible link through which the individual can maintain a link to the military hierarchy, which allows any issues of concern to be raised with the Army chain of command or the MoD outside of legal channels. This is often the most relied on and effective means of providing pastoral support. Of course, veterans can also access help and support 24/7 via the Veterans’ Gateway, which has been a very important innovation.

In addition, we fund charities and organisations through the Armed Forces Covenant Trust. Examples include the Veterans’ Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, the One is Too Many programme, which has been awarded grants of up to £300,000, the Tackling Serious Stress in Veterans, Carers and Families programme and the Ex-Forces in the Criminal Justice System programme.

I am happy to reassure your Lordships that, in the context of many of the areas listed in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, we already publish the comprehensive annual report on the Armed Forces covenant—the Armed Forces Bill currently progressing through the other place is giving statutory import to the Armed Forces covenant. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, for reminding the House of that. I reassure him in relation to his further question that the legacy issues of Northern Ireland are being addressed by the Northern Ireland Office and progress will be reported on as soon as possible. In relation to service complaints, there is a well-established process through which service personnel can make complaints. The Service Complaints Ombudsman reports annually to Parliament on this.

These are all well-established policies and processes and, of course, we continually review them to ensure that they provide the best support and care possible for our personnel. I hope that the detail that I have provided has reassured your Lordships about the way in which the MoD both acknowledges and specifically addresses our duty of care and provides an environment for personnel to express and raise concerns. We are clear on our responsibilities to provide the right support to our personnel, both serving and veterans, and to seek to improve and build on this wherever necessary. I do not believe, therefore, that setting a standard for duty of care in the Bill is necessary, nor does it require an annual report to Parliament. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.