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Armed Forces Covenant

As my hon. Friend knows, there is considerable debate about the numbers of the armed forces as a proportion of the prison population. I think we can say that for many of those who end up in prison, particularly those who have been homeless or who have been subject to drug and alcohol problems, it represents a failure of other systems to provide a suitable safety net. As a country, when we consider issues such as mental health we need to ensure that we do not allow those who are potentially vulnerable to fail to be picked up by the services that might prevent them from ending up in an inappropriate institution such as prison.