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Armed Forces Covenant

My Lords, I very much welcome the decision to have this covenant. However, is the noble Lord aware how complex this is going to get? I will give an example that has been touched on already. One of the main problems is service personnel who have been in the services for a long time, who have seen armed conflict and who come out and find it very difficult to settle. It is a question not just of housing. Consequent rates of suicide, attempted suicide, hospital admissions and prison admissions are all extraordinarily high, as the Minister knows. We ought to discuss—perhaps when we get into the detail of the Bill—whether there is not a more sophisticated role for Armed Forces charities, which could have some of the work outsourced to them. Ex-service personnel will often relate better to them than to local or national government institutions.