Hansard

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak about armed forces veterans and the vital support services and charities that operate in Scotland and throughout the UK.

From the outset I acknowledge, as the Government’s motion does, the debt of gratitude that Scotland owes to those who have served in defence of freedom and I put on the record that we on this side of the chamber continue to support our armed forces personnel and veterans. We will therefore support the Government’s motion at decision time and we welcome the announcement of a veterans’ commissioner. I note the minister’s comments on the early release of that announcement, but if it had been included in the motion that all parties agree on, we would all have been able to support the announcement not just on the record through the Official Report but at decision time tonight. I note, too, the Presiding Officer’s comments on the announcement.

Being a member of the armed forces, particularly during times of conflict, is immensely stressful and beyond anything that we can imagine. However, such stressful situations create a level of commitment and an intense bond among service personnel that is unique to our armed forces in this country. I could only listen and try to work it out in my head when I heard from a soldier who had served in Afghanistan what it was like to come under fire and about that pressure and losing a fellow soldier who was as close to him as a member of his own family.

I can only imagine how isolated someone must feel when they are discharged from the armed forces alone into society, perhaps with no family, after having such a close bond with the comrades with whom they fought. They return to the UK and perhaps live at much larger distances from one another. They go from living in close quarters with people whom they considered to be family—eating, sleeping, working and socialising with the same close group—to being discharged into a community of strangers who tend not to understand military life and the bond that it creates between people. That is particularly the case because, as the minister pointed out, the number of people experiencing military life has fallen from that in the early part of the previous century.

The majority of servicemen and women make a successful transition to civilian life, but it really is not hard to imagine why some of our veterans struggle to adapt. It can put a massive strain on family life, and for those without family civilian life must feel like the loneliest place in the world. For those reasons, it is vital that advice and support services be put in place for former service personnel to help them to adjust to living in mainstream society, and that we support plans to co-ordinate and deliver support and advice services from the private, public and voluntary sectors for ex-service personnel and their families.

There are too many fantastic organisations providing support and advice to ex-service personnel and their families to mention, or for me to do justice to all the work that they do in a speech in Parliament today, but I want to mention some, the first of which could give us experience of what being an armed forces reservist involves. I have mentioned previously the organisation called SaBRE—supporting Britain’s reservists and employers—which has area committees up and down Scotland. That organisation gives advice and information on the extra skills that a reservist can bring to an organisation and it encourages employers to look more favourably on employing reservists. The organisation can give employers first-hand experience of the sort of training that a reservist will get and it regularly holds employer weekends that members here could go to to experience the sort of training that our reservists get. I would be happy to give local contact details for area committees to anyone who is interested.

We have to continue to support the organisations that do tremendous work for former service personnel across Scotland, including the Royal British Legion, which I visit regularly. The legion provides practical care, advice and support to armed forces personnel, ex-servicemen and women of all ages, and their families. It also runs the poppy appeal annually, and recent appeals have emphasised the increasing need to help the men and women who are serving today as well as ex-service people and their dependants. The legion also assists any serviceman or servicewoman to pursue his or her entitlement to a war disablement pension; every year up to 200 ex-service personnel in Scotland are represented at war pensions tribunals. We also have the Scottish Veterans Residences just across the road from the Parliament, which provides residential accommodation to over 300 ex-service personnel and their partners, and has helped tens of thousands of veterans throughout Scotland since it was established in 1911.

We have the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, whose Lanark branch covers the Central Scotland region, which offers financial, practical and much-needed emotional support to current and previous members of the armed forces and their families through services such as forcesline, which is a telephone service that is entirely independent of the military chain of command, and which provides supportive listening and advice and a specialist “absent without leave” advice line. The association also runs a forces additional needs and disability support group and organises children’s holidays that are run by volunteers and which concentrate on offering children who have additional support needs experiences and activities to which they would not usually have access.

The last organisation that I will touch on is Erskine, which is the country’s leading provider of care for veterans. It provides a wide range of care, from respite and short breaks to residential and nursing care, dementia care, palliative care, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and rehabilitation care, all of which are vital services for ex-servicemen and servicewomen and their families.

I hope that the newly announced veterans commissioner will build on the tremendous work that is already taking place in our veterans community and that it will support the many organisations that provide essential services for people to whom we owe such a large debt. I also hope that the commissioner will bring together the wide array of services that operate in pockets of communities and ensure that veterans across Scotland get access to those fantastic services.

14:36