It’s now widely accepted that Britain is facing a defence crisis with an estimated funding shortfall of £28bn. Talk of conscription indicates that there is a recruitment and retention problem. As the Government prepares to launch a ‘Gap Year Foundation Scheme’ and urge veterans of 65 to prepare for war, CEO of Veterans Aid Prof Hugh Milroy asks if it is time to take the Armed Forces Covenant to the next logical level
At a time of growing geopolitical instability, when the spectre of war looms and even the future of NATO cannot be taken for granted, our Armed Forces have shrunk in size to an all-time low. Unsurprisingly, there is a great deal of talk about the need to boost numbers to meet threats… if necessary, by conscription.
Against this background we, at the charity Veterans Aid, are seeing a steady stream of former servicemen and women who are homeless, mentally unwell, destitute, or facing the courts. Many of them are young, sometimes early service leavers; others are old enough to have children of their own who might once have considered a military career. Predictably, given a public profile of veterans being damaged by service, the social media response to talks of conscription made it clear that the Armed Forces did not represent an attractive career option. “What’s in it for me?” was the prevailing response.
The ‘action man’ [sic] advertising that encouraged young people to ‘join the Army and see the world’ no longer chimes with a public perception of veterans routinely damaged by military service – and abandoned after it. Indeed, as I write, the Charity is intervening in real time for an ex-military officer in crisis, sitting in an A&E waiting room while battling addiction and despair. Her flat has no heating, and her food cupboards are empty.
This is not bad luck, but the direct result of a benefits system that penalises her for having a military pension. She lives on around £300 a month because she won’t exaggerate her problems in an attempt increase her benefits. I can absolutely understand why she ended up in addiction.
She served her country, which is laudable, but I have to wonder if she might not be better off if she’d never joined the Armed Forces at all? She sits in the same A&E queue as everyone else. I understand and accept that. But to suggest that she has unique or preferential support because of her service is not just inaccurate, it is shamefully, painfully, wrong. It is a myth. She has no enforceable rights – which, by any standard, is indefensible.
It’s hardly surprising that, to potential recruits or conscripts, the negative legacies of a military career are increasingly outweighing the attractions. There has never been a less auspicious climate in which to launch a recruiting drive; last year employers were urged to encourage their staff to join the Reserve Forces and the Government’s plans to increase the Strategic Reserve ( i.e. those veterans with a call-up commitment) from 55 to 65 smacks of utter desperation.
The only counterweight to this parlous predicament is the Armed Forces Covenant – “A UK national promise ensuring that those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces, and their families, receive fair treatment and aren’t disadvantaged in accessing services, recognising their unique sacrifices for the nation.”
So, could the system that cares for veterans play a much greater role in the defence of the nation? The Covenant, as it stands, gives about as much practical protection as the proverbial chocolate fireguard. Indeed, it could be said, that the Covenant is one of the most high-profile yet least understood commitments in public life. Legions of organisations have signed it. Ministers regularly celebrate it. Statements are made about it. Logos are displayed – and yet it offers little practical support to the former service men and women who come to Veterans Aid in despair.
We deal with homelessness, destitution, mental health problems, legal jeopardy, social isolation and poverty. These are not abstract problems. They are immediate, grindingly complex realities that determine whether individuals survive or not.
The uncomfortable truth is that, for all its claims, the Covenant fails to protect veterans in crisis or prevent them descending into it. I’m not a lone voice in pointing this out – and am on record as challenging the value of the Covenant many times – but the stakes are now higher than ever before and the implications of manpower deficiency, quite chilling.
So what measures are being taken to address this? And what measures should be taken?
The Government genuinely deserves credit for recognising that the current system is not working and for attempting to move things forward through initiatives such as Op Valour. But this will take years to design, implement, and evaluate on its journey toward becoming a nationally effective prevention system. Veterans in crisis do not have years. They have days, sometimes only hours.
My belief now is that however much effort is put into beefing-up the Armed Forces Covenant, it will fail to reassure those it has failed – or who can see the evidence of its failure. It has become little more than a badge of virtue, proudly displayed yet poorly understood.
Most of our clients laugh or look blank when asked how it has helped them – in fact the Covenant in its current form has little relevance to them or to our daily work. A significant minority of the veterans we see are poor, and poverty is the engine that drives almost every other crisis – be it homelessness, mental ill health, family breakdown, or contact with the criminal justice system. That is not because the intent of the Covenant is wrong; in a small number of cases, it can and does help, particularly where a committed organisation like the DWP, some local authority or NHS trust chooses to do the right thing and get involved with a veteran. But overall, it is permissive, uneven, poorly understood, and fundamentally incapable of addressing the single biggest driver of veteran hardship which we see: Poverty. Failure to address this is not a niche critique but a material disaster.
Regardless of efforts by successive agencies over the years the result for those in crisis is confusion. Veterans are endlessly ‘signposted’ between services that may or may not apply to them. However well planned the ‘one-stop-shop’ approach still depends on geography. A postcode lottery replaces justice. From the perspective of veterans in crisis, the question is brutally simple; when the system fails, who takes responsibility?
If we are serious about preventing veteran crisis rather than managing its fallout, then the Covenant is not enough. We need a formal, written Veterans’ Charter, something that will guarantee formal rights for care after service. This open reassurance of support may well be the key to attracting people to serve.
It must be a living, enforceable framework that establishes clear rights and protections for veterans. This isn’t just a better idea; it is the only serious alternative. It is not a radical scheme, but the logical next step to effective delivery. Many aspects already exist in fragmented form across health, housing, employment, education, and the justice system. But they are piecemeal, inconsistently applied, and too often dependent on discretion rather than duty.
A credible Veterans’ Charter must do four things.
The Armed Forces ask much of those who serve. Discipline. Risk. Obedience. Sacrifice. In return, the State must offer more than gratitude and signposting. It must offer certainty. A Veterans’ Charter would not solve every problem overnight, but it would do something the Covenant cannot; it would replace discretion with duty, confusion with clarity, and neglect with responsibility.
This is a call to arms; not for sentiment, but for structure; not for praise, but for protection. Indeed if implemented now, such a bold move would directly support defence aspirations.
In short, we owe veterans more than gratitude, memorialisation and signposting. We owe them enforceable rights.
