Meeting of the Parliament 04 December 2018
I am pleased to speak in the debate, not least in order to welcome the work that has been undertaken by partners across all four nations to develop a veterans strategy. I hope that it is ambitious, all-encompassing and does not end up reflecting the lowest common denominator, because our veterans deserve the best.
Clearly, the Ministry of Defence has a pivotal role as the employer. Although most service personnel leave the armed forces and go on to lead fulfilling and healthy lives in civilian society, some, from day 1, do not. For some personnel, aspects of their service will come back later on to affect them physically, mentally or both. I commend all the businesses and organisations that use ex-service personnel as one of their main sources of recruitment. In the north-east, the oil and gas sector has employed a great many of them, and to good effect. I thank BT for its briefing on the work that it does with veterans.
Due the nature of their work and living situations, there exists among ex-service personnel a camaraderie that does not exist among other cohorts of workers, which is why organisations such as the Royal British Legion Scotland are so important. Ex-service personnel and their families must be made aware that a wide variety of services are available to them; I wish to focus on that point.
First, veterans are able to access all the services that are available to other members of our communities, but many of our veterans services recognise the specialist requirements of our veterans and their families. In Aberdeen, and in my constituency, we are fortunate to have the Gordon Highlanders museum, which recently hosted the first session by Action on Hearing Loss, to facilitate veterans having their hearing and hearing aids checked to ensure that they are making the best use possible of the devices. The session was very successful and quite emotional for those of us who were there, because two veterans in their late 80s met for the first time since they had left school in Turriff many decades previously. I thank Richard Baker for his briefing on behalf of Scottish War Blinded about its work across Scotland, which was highlighted by Stuart McMillan.
I had heard about veterans breakfasts in other parts of Scotland, so I was pleased to attend the first veterans breakfast at the British Legion club in Stonehaven on Saturday 17 November. I thank Brenda Cowe and her team for organising the breakfast for veterans who live in and around Stonehaven. In fact, they came from quite a wide area. In conversation, I was struck by the fact that veterans and their families are not aware of the services that are available for them, which is why I was delighted recently to meet with Robert Reid of Defence Medical Welfare Service, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. In Scotland, it works closely with the health boards in Grampian, Fife and Lanarkshire. Next Wednesday in Parliament members will have a chance to learn more about its work; I hope that members will come—especially those who are based in the health board areas that I have mentioned.
I commend the recent work of the The Press and Journal in highlighting the range of organisations that are available to veterans in the north-east. If I have one plea to make to the minister, it is that there be one place that veterans and their families know about to learn where to access all the services that are available to them.
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