Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 March 2022
I begin by sharing the sentiments from across the chamber of solidarity with the people of Ukraine, who are showing such immense bravery in the face of continued aggression from Putin’s barbaric regime. I extend my solidarity to many of the Russian conscripts, who are clearly caught up in a situation that they did not expect to get caught up in. That exploitation is also worthy of condemnation.
Members of our veterans community are owed a huge debt of gratitude for their service to our country. Whether they served in European conflicts many decade ago, in conflicts in the middle and far east or in the Falklands war, each and every one of them should be immensely proud of their commitment to defending our country, often in the darkest of times.
As someone who has been a member of the Army reserves for more than a decade, I know on a deeply personal level the sacrifices that members of our armed forces make. Their role is a vocation; it means spending huge periods away from their family and friends, and it often leaves them isolated from civilian life. That is why I am delighted that the Scottish Veterans Care Network report and recommendations have finally been published. I am particularly pleased to see the emphasis that is placed on mental health and wellbeing services, which feature prominently in the report.
Poor mental health is incredibly prevalent in the veterans community, for obvious reasons, and I have concerns about the pandemic having exacerbated the situation in recent years. We know the particularly stark impact that isolation had on our veterans community. In 2021, the number of veterans who died as a result of suicide was at its highest level since 2005. The issue has been a cause of huge concern for a long time. That is why our amendment calls for veterans who are at risk of suicide to be specifically considered in the Government’s new suicide prevention strategy for Scotland. The strategy has, to be frank, taken too long to be developed, and its publication has been delayed until September 2022. Nonetheless, the strategy is welcome, and I thank the cabinet secretary for indicating that he will support our amendment to the Government’s motion.
I welcome the recommendations in the Scottish Veterans Care Network report that veterans should have equal access to mental health and wellbeing services, regardless of where they live, and that each NHS board, in collaboration with health and social care partnerships, should have a dedicated community-based mental health and wellbeing service for veterans. The report highlights the significant geographic variation in service provision and the lack of clarity on who to contact initially for help. When veterans ask for help, they often get lost in a fragmented and unresponsive system. Concerns were also raised about the lack of co-ordination between NHS community services and broader third sector provision. The situation has the potential to prevent veterans who are seeking support from accessing it, and that can often be catastrophic. That cannot be allowed to happen, and I hope that the steps that I have outlined will ensure that it does not.
The recommendations on providing support at the right time are also warmly welcome. We know that support is most effective when it is sought out, and our services require significant flexibility to be able to react at short notice. It is fair to say that, currently, the system around support services is incoherent, the services are variable in quality and not all veterans who seek help are able to access it quickly enough.
I welcome the suggestion that UK support services should have access to information on Scottish services and to other sources of information. Our veterans community is often highly mobile, which means that continuity and consistency of information, regardless of where people are located, should be of paramount importance. Ultimately, we are seeking to simplify a complex system, and small improvements such as that could make a huge difference to saving and improving lives.
I welcome the general points in the report about developing an anti-stigma campaign while improving public awareness, knowledge and understanding of veterans’ needs. Most of us will know someone who is classed as a veteran, but we might not always be aware of their needs or the type of tailored support that would be helpful to them. In combat situations, disinformation can be rife, and it is easy for public perceptions to become clouded and for veterans to be stigmatised as a result. I therefore warmly welcome the recommendation on an anti-stigma campaign. It is an honourable thing for people to serve their country.
Overall, there is much to be welcomed in the report, although there are some wider points that could and should have been included. For years, stakeholders in the sector have been warning of an information vacuum. To fully understand the needs of the community, we need to understand the community itself, but data on veterans is often scarce, disjointed and outdated. The community is traditionally difficult to define, and we have no definitive or conclusive understanding of the size of the community or its other characteristics. The report mentions the collation of increased data, particularly through the new census question, and intelligence to improve our understanding of the community. I welcome that, but I remain concerned with the pace of progress.