Meeting of the Parliament 05 December 2024
I begin by welcoming the debate. As convener of the cross-party group on the armed forces and veterans community, I know that our veterans face many issues, which do not get the parliamentary time that they deserve. Today’s debate has been an opportunity to raise some of those issues and, on behalf of the group, I thank members for doing so.
The cross-party group has made positive progress over the past 10 years, particularly under the tutelage of Maurice Corry, and it has increased the number of organisations in its membership that support our armed forces personnel and veterans and their families. I pay tribute to both the minister and the veterans commissioner for their support and commitment not just to the cross-party group but to the community as a whole.
I agree with the sentiment of the motion, but sentiment alone will not deliver the improvements that our veterans need, so I am grateful to Jamie Greene for raising our proposal for an armed forces and veterans bill. Enshrining the armed forces covenant in law for public bodies would be both a big step forward and the right thing to do, because veterans are up against some very serious challenges. We have already heard about some of those struggles in the debate. Homelessness among veterans has been rising in recent years—more than 900 homelessness applications were made in the past financial year, the vast majority of which were from those who left the armed forces more than five years ago. That hints at the long-term nature of the challenges that veterans can face when they return to civilian life.
We also know that veterans are struggling with mental health issues. In relation to those who were assessed for homelessness in the previous financial year, the stand-out support issue was the need for help with mental health.
There has been some progress on addressing veterans issues, such as through the Scottish Government’s support for the veterans treatment pathway and the NHS Scotland armed forces talent programme, which helps veterans to find employment in the health service. On employability support in general, there has been some important work on the military skills and qualifications discovery tool, the going forward into employment scheme and the civil service guaranteed interview scheme, all of which receive praise in the latest veterans commissioner’s report.
However, I am concerned that the Scottish Government’s commitment is struggling to meet demand. I note that the veterans commissioner’s 2024 report points out the slow progress on delivering the veterans mental health and wellbeing pathway, alongside which the report says that the veterans homelessness prevention pathway has stalled.
There are more than 176,000 veterans in Scotland. Another 10,000 people are employed by the British Army and more than 8,000 will be working at Faslane. Let us not forget veterans’ families, either, who also require support and care, particularly where the veteran is facing challenging times. What are they to make of such setbacks, whether or not they eventually get reversed? They send a worrying signal to the armed forces community, and we need that to be tackled, because we know that almost two thirds of veterans feel undervalued. That is a concerning state of affairs for a group of people who have risked their lives for us. Those men and women have stepped up for their country, and it is time that their country stepped up for them.
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