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Armed Forces Personnel

That was a useful intervention. It makes the point that things have improved, although there are still problems. One problem among the homeless people interviewed was that some of those who had not been on active service in a war zone did not really regard themselves as veterans; they somehow thought that they might not be as entitled to the same help as someone who had. The question of ex-services personnel in prison was mentioned earlier. The National Association of Probation Officers did some work on the issue fairly recently. It got case histories from about 22 probation areas, and they showed a significant problem. The prison in-reach project—again, sponsored by the Ministry of Defence—is doing a scoping survey at the moment. In one small pilot study in Dartmoor, more than 16 per cent. of the people surveyed had undertaken military service, although other surveys have come up with rather lower figures. The NAPO survey made it clear that in all those probation areas, probation officers were reporting that they were dealing with ex-services personnel. Furthermore, in their view, the majority of such people with whom they were dealing had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and there had been no real attempt to identify the problem—either when those people were discharged from the services or when they were arrested and charged. The other point that came out clearly has already been referred to: a very high proportion of those people had been involved in heavy drinking or drug taking at some point. Some good little projects are starting. Staff at Everthorpe prison have put together a pack that deals specifically with ex-forces personnel, and work on Army welfare is going on in North Yorkshire. There are examples of good practice, but there are also gaps in our knowledge: we know that the problem is there, but we do not know its precise scale. I hope that the Minister accepts—I think that the Ministry of Defence accepts—that we need to look into this problem and put more information together. If there have been successes in dealing with people becoming homeless, we should look at how that can be transferred into helping them not to end up in prison. My second point, on which I may not get the same support from the Minister that I hope to get on my first, concerns recruitment, specifically the ages at which people are recruited. I would not dispute that a career in the armed forces can offer young people real opportunities, and I have no problems with young people seeing soldiers; the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) talked about soldiers going into schools. However, we must face the fact that many non-officer recruits into the Army are people with relatively low educational attainment living in poor communities and that a significant number go into the Army as a last resort. I see the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) shaking his head, but a survey carried out in 2004 suggested that up to 40 per cent. of Army recruits were doing it because they could not find anything else that they wanted to do. Irrespective of that, about a quarter of all recruits in 2007 and 2008 were aged under 18. We are unusual among members of the European Union in recruiting people into the Army at the age of 16; most countries do not do that. Yet when we recruit people under the age of 18, the regulations mean that they are signing up for a longer period than someone who joins at the age of 18. We have a rule—it had been lifted and was then brought back in regulations that came into force in August last year—that requires young people to serve for a minimum of four years beyond their 18th birthday. Somebody who signs up when they are 18 could sign up for four years, but if they sign up at 16 or 17, they are signing up to serve for four years beyond their 18th birthday. I wonder how that will sit with our debates on the Equality Bill later in this Session. In the first six months, there is an absolute right to discharge whereby someone who is unhappy can choose to leave voluntarily without a problem, but after that it is discretionary. We should consider moving to an age limit of 17, or at least enabling people to leave at any point before they are 18.