To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many veterans ID cards his Department has issued in phase 2 of the rollout.

The Veterans' Recognition Scheme has a two-phase roll-out and phase one, where Service leavers receive a recognition card as part of the discharge process, is complete. There have been 37,284 cards issued from the start of the programme in December 2018 to August 2021 in phase one for personnel as they left the Services.

The launch of phase two, for existing veterans, has been delayed and there have, therefore, been no ID cards issued as part of this phase. This is taking longer than we would like but we are making progress, and hope to provide an update on this shortly.