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Armed Forces: Severely Wounded Personnel

My Lords, I rise with apologies for the second time in my career in your Lordships' House, because I did not think that I would have the opportunity to be here tonight to support the noble Lord, Lord Burnett. For that reason, I apologise to your Lordships for not having my name on the list, but I shall be very brief and give enormous thanks to one or two Members of your Lordships' House tonight. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, for giving us the opportunity to debate this wide-ranging subject. He and other noble Lords may know this, but I declare an interest as secretary of the House of Lords defence group, which is tactfully known at level five, as the noble Baroness will know, as the warlords, but I am certainly one of the tamer ones. I have to say what enormous help Members of your Lordships' House who are interested in defence receive from the noble Baroness and, at the outset, I would like to say how grateful I am, because many of my remarks have been based on the help that she and the department have been able to give. I have a minor personal interest. My noble friend Lord Astor and the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, were professional regular soldiers. I am now into my eighth decade, which indicates that I was a conscript for two years of National Service. I served only 19 months of that because, on 20 January 1959, I took a particularly foolish injury when skiing, which caused me to be in plaster for an entire summer and most of the autumn, with remedial treatment. I found that I was not getting better and I spent the summer of 1960 once again in the care of physiotherapists and medics. I am not necessarily one to speak, because two miles from where I had my appalling accident, my noble friend Lord Astor also had an accident, so he, too, will speak from some experience tonight. I know what I and, I am sure, my noble friend, felt. It was not just the physical repair but, as my noble friend Lord Patten described it, it is what I think he called stress. We find it popularly termed in the media as trauma—that, indeed, is the transatlantic term—but it is pure stress. Now if I, let alone my noble friend, felt it, then think what all of those brave young men and women have had: a serious problem, not only of physical injury but of what my noble friend Lord Patten so eloquently put out. The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, was kind enough to refer to 45 Commando, and I had the good luck to go to Arbroath on 29 May. What struck me there was that not just older citizens like me, who might have appreciated what I hope I may call our Commando in the county of Angus, but also all the youngsters—younger schoolchildren, college students, teenagers and late teenagers—were really impressed and proud to see all those young men back. Some, alas, were injured, as the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, said, but he pointed out what we were able to see in the Courier. We were, once again, able to see young Marines, using all sorts of prosthetics, as I think they are called, and serious assistance for their appalling injuries, receiving their medals. Thanks to the noble Baroness and her department, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and I all had the chance to visit Selly Oak in March 2007. I think that was when her department was beginning to take the first steps in returning servicemen with pretty serious injuries. They came back to Selly Oak, which was not receiving the greatest publicity then; happily, we three who were there were able to rebut a good bit of that, and I am confident that enormous improvements are being made. I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness will say in due course. Also, thanks to the noble Baroness, our group visited Headley Court in June 2008. I hope that your Lordships will bear with me on this, but we were absolutely shattered by the unbelievable courage and, if I might be forgiven a slightly unlordly comment, sheer guts of all the young men and quite a few young women who were there. They were determined to follow exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, has said; they wished 110 per cent to return, as far as was humanly possible, to their service life because they missed it and all the points of comradeship that the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, mentioned. They wanted to get that back. However, as my noble friend Lord Patten said, it is not just the physical injuries; it is the stress. I know that the noble Baroness will be able to give us some encouraging news on that when she replies. For my part, I certainly thank her for everything that she does. I also thank my noble friend Lord Astor and, if I may call him my noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this tonight. I apologise to your Lordships for I thought that I would be away, therefore I am an intruder. That is enough.