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Defence in the UK

The truth is that I am not satisfied and, as my hon. Friend knows, we have done a fair amount of work to try to improve the support that we give to the families of our bereaved servicemen. We have made many improvements and put some resources into that. We have not got it right, because there is more that we can do to offer that support, and we are looking at it all the time. We have sometimes allowed the process to take too long and sometimes we have even caused the delay. That only adds to the upset and the bitterness that families feel when they have lost someone close to them, so we have to improve and do as much as we can. My hon. Friend draws attention to an area on which the MOD must keep working. We are now working across Government to implement the promises that we made in the Command Paper. We have formed an external reference group, with members drawn from Government, the devolved Administrations, charities and academia, which will report formally to the Prime Minister, and through him to the public, to ensure that we honour the military covenant not just now, but down through the years. In pursuit of this, we have done much more over the last year to improve the lot of our servicemen and women. We have increased the commitment bonus to a maximum of £15,000 and increased the operational allowance to £2,300, improved the longer separation allowance, and invested in Headley Court to the tune of £24 million. We have extended Defence Medical Services to reservists on operations. We have introduced child care vouchers, achieved better access by service personnel to the key worker living scheme, arranged free post at Christmas for parcels, awarded above inflation pay rises and brought in council tax relief for those on operations. We plan to do more in the future. We are establishing a military ward in Birmingham's new hospital and rolling out the community mental health services for veterans. For families, we are disregarding compensation payments for the means test on home adaptation grants, providing additional accommodation for service leavers at risk of homelessness and removing disadvantage when it comes to access to schools. We will give service leavers with more than six years in the forces their first A-level course or even a degree course with no tuition fees. We will extend concessionary bus travel to seriously injured personnel and veterans. Our initiatives have led the Royal British Legion to say:"““The Covenant is being brought back into balance””." That is all a far cry from the bluster and hyperbole of the Forsyth commission. The commission's report was 40 pages long and made no real commitments—well, they were few and far between. It was a huge retreat from the commision's interim report and it deservedly sunk without a trace.