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Armed Forces Personnel

My hon. Friend brings me to my very point. The shameful statistic is that between one quarter and one fifth of rough sleepers have served in our armed forces. That is the point that I tried to make when I intervened earlier on my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). The Government’s duty of care to service personnel does not rest on a narrow legal definition, nor does it end when people leave the services. What are they doing to ensure that personnel receive more than just combat experience when they enlist? My final R is retirement. It is the final stage of the through-life cost of service personnel—or, I should say, it is the final stage of the through-life duty owed to them by the Government. The Government must do more than honour veterans in spirit, or by giving them a badge. Veterans deserve more than our intangible respect: they need continuing support, medical and psychiatric but financial too—by which I mean better pensions. I have spoken briefly about the five Rs—recruitment, retention, resources, rehabilitation and retirement. Unless we address each of them, we will not have armed forces that are, to use the Government’s mantra, fit for purpose. I conclude by quoting Lord Garden, who warned in the other place that a renewal of the duty of care owed to servicemen is needed urgently if we want to avoid finding ourselves"““with a great deal of shiny equipment but nobody to operate it.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 June 2006; Vol. 683, c. 1369.]" It seems that much of our equipment is not in fact all that shiny, but I urge the Minister to pay heed to the warning.