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Armed Forces Personnel

The hon. Gentleman makes an important and valid point. Tracking someone who may have mental health problems subsequently is obviously a different issue from tracking someone who presents with a general or a mental health problem or who has received injuries in battle during his period of service. As the hon. Gentleman knows, people with mental health issues and PTSD present some time later, so it is obviously not possible to track in that context. That is part of the reason why we are setting up mental health assessment programmes, which will allow people to get an assessment. It is also why we are developing pilots with the NHS and Combat Stress to provide treatment for our armed forces personnel. It is important to stress that we are seeing a significant development in the approach to mental health for our veterans. Let me move on to an issue that has not been much debated today, but is very important—resettlement. We have an extensive resettlement package for our service leavers. Something in the region of 20,000 people leave every year. This is a very important package, which provides training, education and general support for our service leavers to give them the best possible start in civilian life. The longer someone has been in service, the better the package. We should recognise the importance of this scheme. About 93 per cent. of those who have been through the resettlement package who want to find work do so within six months. That is another important aspect of our support for service personnel. I am conscious of the time, so let me make a couple of final points. The issue of how we can best further help and support our veterans and armed forces personnel is important. We have a duty to continue to look at ways of improving such support. We have taken major steps forward, but a key area is to ensure that we work with all our partners, including the NHS, local authorities and particularly the service charities, which do a tremendous job. We will continue to examine the ways in which we can take these matters forward. We have taken significant steps forward in recent years in the support that we give to our armed forces and to their care and welfare, and we will continue to do that work.