---

Strategic Defence Review (Green Paper)

We need to recognise that the way in which we treat our armed forces has an impact on our ability to recruit the high-calibre people whom we want. The detailed work on how we take forward our welfare programmes for both veterans and serving personnel is being undertaken by the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones). There are aspects that we yet want to improve, despite the improvements that we have made over the years in the service personnel Command Paper and so on, and we may make further statements in the near future on aspects of welfare for parts of our armed forces.