I must apologise for not being here at Second Reading when I was unable to come over from Northern Ireland. I declare an interest in that we are involved at my home with veterans and I am president of the Northern Ireland RFCA. Whereas it is different in England, we have not responsibility but more interaction with veterans themselves.
What worries us all is the “due regard” and how that is treated by our different and separate Administrations. I am not shining a light on Northern Ireland in particular nor asking the Minister to make any comments about Northern Ireland, where we have a special issue. However, this problem is seen as an issue by veterans. When we talk about the mental welfare of veterans, one of the biggest issues is who we are talking about. We have veterans who we know individually have mental welfare problems, but the big problem is the one that we do not know about: the vast number of veterans who have mental welfare issues but do not come forward. They do not do so for many reasons and we cannot go into them too much, but they include pride and the fact that they live with their families and do not want to admit the problem.
We know that the length of time between leaving service or being traumatised and presentation has gone down since Prince William and Prince Harry drew attention to it, from roughly 12 or 13 years to some six or seven, which is tremendous. However, the doubt as to how the covenant works and how it benefits our veterans inhibits a lot of them from coming forward. It is very difficult to admit that you have a problem and then be turned away due to a postcode lottery. Indeed, which Administration you live in can make it more difficult.
At the moment, I think the covenant is the beginning of a story and of a method by which we can support our veterans. It is not a done deal but a start. I therefore support the gist of the amendments because they would take us in the right direction, though I appreciate that some of the scope and the lack of teeth are only a start. We have to make sure that we can take it further and cover an increasing proportion of those people.
The statistics, which are roughly equivalent to American and Danish statistics and therefore correct, show that 6% or 7% of all service people—interestingly, this relates outside this business to police and other front-line services—suffer some form of mental illness, while 17% of those on operations do so. So there is a very large body of people out there, and we have to enable this commitment to the covenant and to our people to be extended.
6.45 pm
We talk about central government not being committed—although this is not quite about that issue. I shall give noble Lords an example of something that really came home to me. As a Lord Lieutenant, I take citizenship ceremonies. Not long ago, a man took the oath and everything else, and I went to hand him his certificate, which is always a chance to have some words. I asked him what he did and what skills he brought to this country, just to have a nice chat, and he whispered—because he did not want other people to hear. I asked him where he came from and he said he came from the Caribbean. I said, “What do you do?” and he said, “I’m actually in the Army”. I said, “Oh, right—what have you done in the Army?” He said, “I’ve been to Afghanistan twice and I was in Iraq”. This man was being asked to go through the same hoop as somebody who comes to the country—and I am not being superior—who is running a Pizza Hut.
We do not have this general commitment, as individuals and administrators, let alone as it is in this Bill, which is open enough to give the commitment that the covenant promised to give. I plead with the Minister to ensure that, whatever comes with this, we allow it to be modified as we all learn more about how to be effective, especially in the mental welfare of our veterans.