Hansard

It is an honour to be here to mark armistice day and to place on record my thanks to the people who have proudly served our country and those who, over the years, have made the ultimate sacrifice. As someone who has been a member of the Army reserves for more than a decade, I know the sacrifices that members of our armed forces make. We owe a debt of gratitude to them. It is a vocation that requires them to sacrifice spending time with family and friends and isolates them from everyday civilian life, yet time and again they continue to be the very best of our country.

This year, it feels apt to mention the work of service personnel at home, as well as abroad. They have been a key part of our Covid pandemic response. More than 100 personnel are currently deployed at mobile testing units across Scotland, and at one point 95 per cent of all testing facilities were being run by the Army. They were recently asked to help with the ambulance crisis in a number of Scottish health boards and last month approximately 200 servicemen and women helped to deliver petrol to garages across the country in an attempt to ease the fuel crisis.

Despite their personal sacrifice, they are often forgotten when they return from duty or leave the armed forces entirely. Those individuals are highly susceptible to experiencing mental health difficulties, drug and alcohol-related problems and, in many cases, homelessness. We often think of remembrance in the context of a century ago, but more than 100,000 people have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades.

Remembrance is not about veterans of the world war two generation in isolation, but about people in my peer group—people in their 30s and 40s—who served in those theatres of conflict and have suffered terribly as a result of losing their friends. I think about some of the friends I lost in Afghanistan, far too young, and I recognise the trauma that that can cause for the people who are left behind. Yet, even though we know that to be the case, the support is not sufficient to alleviate those issues.

That plight has been exacerbated by the Covid restrictions and the recent calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to Help for Heroes, appeals for help rose sharply during the pandemic lockdowns and the mental health charity Combat Stress has experienced an increase of more than 50 per cent in its correspondence since the Taliban swept back to power in Afghanistan. Those mental health issues often lead to a reliance or dependence on alcohol and, to a lesser extent, drugs. A report published last year by the Forces in Mind Trust detailed the impact that alcohol and drug abuse can have on veterans and their families.

The research suggests that alcohol is the primary substance-misuse problem for veterans, with many developing a reliance during their service. One veteran described the drinking culture in the armed forces as a way of life. Knowing the damage that substance misuse can cause, I find that very concerning and I would like to see the problem addressed more robustly by the Ministry of Defence.

We know that drug misuse is prevalent in the armed forces, with data from the Ministry of Defence showing that, in 2019, 660 Army personnel were dismissed from their duties after failing a drugs test. We need to ask ourselves why that is happening and how we can create a system in which service personnel do not feel the need to turn to alcohol or drugs as a coping mechanism or a way of fitting in, only to lose their career as a result, with often devastating personal consequences that result in death or imprisonment.

Housing is another huge problem. A freedom of information request submitted to the Scottish Government last year revealed that almost 250 ex-service personnel were living in some form of temporary accommodation across Scotland. How can it be that in 2021 we still have veterans—men and women who have served their country in some of the harshest environments in the world—going without the basic human right of a permanent roof over their head? We very much need to get to grips with that issue

The problems faced by our veterans community are multifaceted. As a society, we owe it to them to confront those issues and find solutions, but Government support is very often marching in the opposite direction.

The British Government’s defence command paper that was published in March this year included plans to reduce the full-time established strength of the Army from 82,500 to 72,000 by 2025, leaving the UK with the smallest Army since 1714. Closures are planned at Fort George, Glencorse barracks and Redford barracks, cutting the number of regular soldiers and the footprint of the forces community in Scotland from 3,700 to just 2,000. There will also be a real-terms cut in revenue funding in the next four years. That means less money for forces recruitment, training, pay and families. It means a possible cut of 40 per cent to the budget of the office for veterans affairs.

Despite a recently announced across-the-board pay rise, members of the armed forces have faced a real-terms overall pay cut since 2010, with private soldiers’ pay down 7.5 per cent during the decade.

Additional funding from all levels of Government for mental health projects and those who are tackling substance misuse is urgently needed as a starting point, but we need more than that—we need a cultural and societal change.