Johnny Mercer MP is the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs
20 years in the past this week, UK forces invaded Iraq.
There won’t have been many who awakened on Monday morning feeling good about it. These concerned in Operation Telic went in believing they have been doing so to make the world a safer place and that their service and sacrifices wouldn’t be in useless. It’s true the folks of Iraq are not dwelling underneath the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. However the legacy of warfare is each profound and enduring.
At a group stage, there can be ache: three implausible troopers from my regiment – 29 Commando – have been killed as two American Sea Knight helicopters collided on the primary evening of the warfare. On a strategic stage, I can’t imagine there may be not a level of remorse within the hearts of our political, intelligence and navy leaders on the time.
It was not my warfare. I used to be embarking on commando coaching on Dartmoor as a 20-year-old, desirous to get entangled. However for the women and men on the bottom, a lot doesn’t change: the joy, the worry, the inexorable wait after which the herculean effort for some to return to regular life afterwards.
Our file on taking care of those that have served and the households of the bereaved has, up to now, been shameful. I entered politics underneath no phantasm that we wanted to reset our relationship with the veteran group, however assured that if one occasion have been probably to take action, it could be the Conservative Celebration.
From being a backbencher, choose committee member, junior minister and now a cupboard minister, I’m immensely happy with what this occasion has allowed me to do for this as soon as forgotten cohort. I’ve labored laborious, to not promote my agenda, (I felt passionately in regards to the trigger, however was by no means the professional) however to champion the voices of those that wanted enhancements to their lives.
Eight years on from first being elected, I imagine we have now confirmed our dedication to ex-service personnel, and the Chancellor’s Spring Finances is testomony to this. The £33 million introduced final Wednesday comes on prime of the £8.55 million that the Workplace for Veterans’ Affairs secured at Christmas to finish veterans’ homelessness within the UK by the top of 2023. Collectively, this represents a greater than £40 million funding in our veteran group – unprecedented in our nation’s historical past.
Already, we have now created clear and devoted pathways to assist veterans in areas from well being to housing and, recognising that our feminine veteran group will proceed to develop, it’s only proper that we’ll launch the UK’s first Girls Veterans’ Technique later this yr. That is all underpinned by having a devoted seat on the Cupboard desk for championing Veterans’ Affairs and we are actually spending over £135 million a yr on veterans’ companies throughout authorities. This actually is a unprecedented development from the place we began.
Against this, I nonetheless don’t have any reverse quantity on Labour’s frontbench. The Labour Celebration stays a charade participant on this house, pretending week after week to care, while working one thing akin to ‘band-camp’ throughout the nation in a pitiful try to grasp what veterans need. I’ll inform the Opposition now – they don’t need tokenism.
Few have forgotten that solely two and a half years in the past, Sir Keir Starmer was out rallying assist for Jeremy Corbyn to change into our subsequent Prime Minister, regardless of him opining how fantastic it could be if we abolished our Armed Forces, equivocating on Russia’s use of horrific nerve brokers for an tried homicide on British soil and calling for us to scrap our nuclear deterrent, the cornerstone of Euro-Atlantic safety.
For that cause alone, veterans and repair personnel ought to by no means vote Labour, however they’re additionally not silly, and we have now to offer them one thing to vote for. I imagine we’re doing that, and if we proceed on this trajectory, they may. All two million plus of them and their households.
This Authorities is dedicated to championing the wants of those that have given a lot, and can proceed to construct on the large strides already taken to genuinely enhance veterans’ care throughout the UK. This implies accessing the identical stage of assist, whether or not you’re in Plymouth or Richmond, and having clear pathways into employment, whether or not you have been a paratrooper or marine engineer. It additionally means guaranteeing that veterans and bereaved households really feel that their service and sacrifice is recognised all the time, not simply on days of nationwide remembrance.
So, no matter your emotions are on Iraq 20 years on, take time to think about these most affected by it in our nation – those that fought, those that died and people for whom life was by no means the identical once more. You honour those that have gone earlier than not with solemnity and sympathy, though these are necessary too. You honour them by maintaining your guarantees to your Armed Forces personnel, whose cause is to not query why, however to do or die.
So, to all those that have fought to maintain our nation protected, I need to thanks and reiterate as soon as once more that the Conservative Celebration will all the time combat for you and your households in return.