Janet Finch-Saunders:
I welcome the opportunity to speak in today’s debate. I would like to say, Members, what a privilege it was for me on Saturday to join the Minister, other north Wales AMs and the Secretary of State for Wales as we—irrespective of any political allegiance—stood together and paid our tributes, in the way that we saw fit, to recognise and commemorate Armed Forces Day.
This is a significant year for our country. It sees the ending of combat operations of our British forces in Afghanistan. Whatever your views on the war, the bravery, selflessness and heroism of our troops is unquestionable. Many have paid the ultimate price. Many bear life-changing physical wounds. Too many are battling with complex mental illness, breakdowns and addiction. We owe these brave men and women an insurmountable debt, as we do those who have served in past conflicts. That is why 2014 is of such huge importance.
It is the one-hundredth anniversary of the start of the first world war—a conflict that led to the death of millions, who paid the ultimate sacrifice, with our brave Welsh troops playing an equal and vital role alongside their United Kingdom counterparts. The year also commemorates the seventieth anniversary of the D-day landings, which saw over 160,000 troops cross into Nazi-occupied France. These are all hugely significant events, in which our armed forces played a vital role. The role is one of which we can be proud, but not without humility also.
Much has been said about the suffering that people who have fought on behalf of our country now have. The charity Combat Stress estimates that it takes, on average, over 13 years from the time of discharge for a veteran to recognise many of the symptoms and then to seek help. The number of Afghanistan veterans referred to Combat Stress in 2013 was 57% higher than in 2012, and 20% of veterans were more likely to suffer from severe mental health problems. Combat Stress is assisting more veterans now than at any point in time. An estimated 13% are suffering from alcohol problems and homelessness, and—sadly, tragically—for younger veterans, those aged 24 and under are approximately two to three times more likely to take their own lives.
The potential knock-on of this for our veterans greatly concerns me. In that, I am talking about the cuts to our health service. The variations in waiting times for the treatment of PTSD that were uncovered by the BBC recently are deeply concerning. Prompt diagnosis and treatment is essential. I commend the Welsh Government in setting up the all-Wales veterans health and wellbeing service. However, it is worrying that Healthcare Inspectorate Wales found that very few veterans had even heard of it, so there is more to be done there.
The UK Government has launched the community covenant scheme, allowing and affording local authorities the opportunity to access a £30 million fund for projects promoting understanding of local armed forces and their communities. I am very pleased that 22 local authorities have signed up to this. Last week, the Royal British Legion called on local authorities to assist serving and ex-servicemen and women further. It called for tangible changes to social housing allocations policy in Wales, and for disabled facility grants to be prioritised where a disability is as a result of service. I echo those calls.
I call today on the Welsh Government and the Minister responsible to take the lead here and drive these recommendations across all Welsh local authorities. The Welsh Conservatives have long called for an all-Wales veterans card. To me, this is such a tangible and really evidential way of showing the support that we believe those who have served and those who have gone before us deserve as the very minimum: the expansion of free bus travel, free entry to council swimming pools, free entry to Cadw sites, the provision of priority care in our NHS and help to overcome the lack of knowledge about this. In short, it is about caring and it is about supporting. Minister, I have spoken on numerous occasions now in debates, and very proudly so, but with humility, too, and it just concerns me that the message is not getting through. Please support those who have served in our armed forces, today, now, and at any time.
Minister for Local Government and Government Business, Leslie Griffiths:
I am very pleased to respond to this debate on behalf of the Welsh Government, and I thank Members for their contributions. June has been a particularly poignant month, given the events to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the D-day landings. The First Minister was in Normandy and was fortunate enough to speak to veterans who had landed on those beaches 70 years earlier. The heroism shown and the sacrifice made by our veterans are things that we should always remember.
As Members have said, this year marks the centenary of the beginning of the first world war. Our commemorative programme is characterised by a determination to involve everyone, either within their local community or by contributing to national events and activities. I ask you to encourage your constituents to attend the events being arranged, or to arrange their own events and projects and to let us know about their plans via the Cymru’n Cofio Wales Remembers 1914-1918 website. I think Andrew R.T. Davies raised a very important point about educating our young people. Again, Welsh Government has given specific funding to high schools in order to do this. The First Minister and I will be representing Welsh Government at several events in August, at the time of the centenary.
I am pleased that point 1 of the motion recognises Armed Forces Day. Welsh Government funds a flagship event in north Wales and one in south Wales, and, as other Members have mentioned, I was very pleased to be at the north Wales event, in Wrexham, last Saturday, and the First Minister will be attending the event in Cardiff next Saturday. I was also present at Cardiff castle on Monday for the armed forces flag-raising ceremony. So, I think it a very appropriate time to again pay tribute to our armed forces personnel for all they do on our behalf.
I also support point 2 of the motion. I have referred to the Welsh Government's package of support for the armed forces community in Wales previously in Plenary. We published the revised document this time last year, and, of course, there have been further developments, which include the provision of £2 million to provide housing for service leavers, a substance misuse treatment framework aimed at improving access to substance misuse treatment for veterans, a pathway to care for veteran prisoners, and the inclusion of veterans as a priority group in the all-Wales reducing reoffending strategy.
I support amendment 1. We estimate that, in 2015-16 alone, some of the UK's key welfare reforms will result in a loss of around £900 million in Wales. Adult children who are in the armed forces but who continue to live with their parents will be treated as continuing to live at home when deployed on operations in relation to the bedroom tax, as Jocelyn Davies pointed out. This, however, does not apply if they are not on active duty.
Regarding amendment 2, there are some legal technicalities with Ministry of Defence funding organisations in Wales that support the armed forces community. We actively encourage Welsh applications to all MOD grants, including the community covenant grant scheme and leaver grant. The Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill will resolve these issues.
I do not support point 3 of the motion as it stands and move to amend this. As I stated in Plenary on 14 May, initial findings on the need for a card were inconclusive. I have agreed to explore opportunities for a pilot scheme to further examine whether there is a robust case, and a paper setting out the options will be presented to my expert group on the needs of the armed forces community tomorrow. Following advice from this group, I will make a decision on the way forward. As you know, the group includes members of the armed forces community. I do not want to pre-empt tomorrow's discussion, however, the feedback that I am getting so far is not strongly in support of a Wales-specific card. I think that it is really important to draw a distinction between an ID card and the provision of services to veterans. The two are not interdependent, and my considerations will take this into account. I know that Peter Black and Andrew R.T. Davies mentioned a pilot scheme, which I have had a look at. I have had it costed and it will be discussed at the expert group tomorrow.
Ann Jones made an important point when she talked about the elephant in the room, because, having had such a massive cut to our budget, as a whole, from the UK Government, we have to look at the impact of what we spend, and, unless that card really brings benefits, I will have to look very closely at the cost of it.
I will give an example of why the two are not interdependent, if the NHS in Wales is already required to provide priority treatment and care for veterans whose health problems result from their service. All 22 local authorities, as has been recognised this afternoon, have now signed the community covenants. The last one was Blaenau Gwent in December of last year. Several have already introduced free or discounted access to swimming and leisure services, using existing means of identification. It is important that this community covenant document does not sit on a shelf gathering dust, and I have recently written to all 22 local authorities asking what action has been taken since they signed the community covenants, and I have been reassured that they look at this covenant on an ongoing basis to monitor what services they are providing.
I can also confirm that the Welsh Government is prepared to consider a concessionary rate, or free admission, to Cadw sites for veterans. We are currently undertaking a review of adaptations, including disabled facilities grants, and we will ensure that consideration of priority delivery of disabled facilities grants for veterans is included. We have already excluded military pensions and compensations from the means test for disabled facilities grants. Our concessionary bus travel scheme was extended in 2011 to include seriously injured service personnel and seriously injured veterans. Therefore, you can see that a great deal of work has gone on over the past year.
I support amendment 4: improving the mental health of veterans and ensuring funding for the all-Wales veterans health and wellbeing service is a programme for government commitment. The Welsh Government has provided recurring funding of £485,000, which supports provision for veterans, and an additional £100,000 to the £650,000 investment in psychological therapies in the current year has also been agreed. This will focus on equalising waiting times across the service, and a review of the service is currently being undertaken by Public Health Wales.
In relation to a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, the Welsh Government would consider how it might be able to support that, but Welsh soldiers are already remembered in memorials across Wales, including the national war memorial in Cathays park.
If I may, I will just say something about reservists. It is Uniform to Work Day today and I think that it is important to mention that, because we value our reservists. Certainly, the MoD cuts coming from the UK Government mean that we are going to rely on reservists even more. Today, as Andrew R.T. Davies said, is national reservist day, and we have encouraged reservists to wear their uniforms to work to encourage others to join up. The Welsh Government supports this very much today, and we have had reservist recruitment teams in Cathays park from all three services, and they will be visiting other Welsh Government offices in the coming months.