Ben Obese-Jecty is the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon and a former British Army Infantry Officer.
As a veteran, the issue of veterans’ affairs is one that is close to my heart. Having served a three-year term on the Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committee, finishing earlier this year, I have seen how important it is that we continue to champion policies and initiatives that add value to our ex-services community.
Amid the recent spate of appointments to the new cabinet there were few surprises, but a notable exception from Sir Keir Starmer’s first cabinet meeting was the Minister for Veterans Affairs.
Under the Conservatives, Johnny Mercer attended cabinet as part of the Government’s promotion of the role; Labour’s decision to restructure its governance of veterans and demote the role is yet to be fully explained.
In the newly-elected (and rapidly promoted) Al Carns, Labour does have a well-respected minister who knows the Ministry of Defence well.
But therein lies the issue: the Office for Veterans’ Affairs sits within the Cabinet Office for good reason. Labour have decided to separate it from the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, which itself now sits within the Ministry of Defence and no longer attends cabinet; representation of veterans at Cabinet now comes from the Defence Secretary.
Information regarding Labour’s plans to support veterans is scarce and there are only two sentences in Labour’s manifesto which address the topic:
“Labour will ensure veterans have access to the mental health, employment, and housing support and in other areas they need. We will also scrap visa fees for non-UK veterans who have served for four or more years, and their dependents.”
The first sentence is broad enough to sound like plausible support for veterans, but the issue is that all these aspects are already covered by existing government schemes.
Op Courage was launched in January 2024 as an NHS mental health specialist service designed to help serving personnel, veterans and their families. Op Fortitude was launched by the Office for Veterans’ affairs in July 2023 as a centralised referral pathway into veteran supported housing. It is funded by the Armed Forces Covenant to support veterans at risk of becoming homeless.
Regarding employment, the previous government launched the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme and the ‘Great Place to work for Veterans’ scheme as well as offering National Insurance contributions relief as an incentive to employ first-year veterans.
Given there are already specific schemes in place to address each aspect of support for veterans in the Labour manifesto, it is not unreasonable to ask: what precisely Labour intends to do differently?
In recent years I have written a number of pieces, both for Conservative Home and elsewhere, proposing the waiving of visa fees for the dependants of Commonwealth veterans. Indeed, it was pleasing to see the policy included in both Conservative and Labour manifestos. But for Labour, this is the sole specific veterans policy in the entire document.
Labour must be pressed to outline what their plan for veterans actually is. What will make a difference to veterans’ lives that isn’t already in place? Can Labour guarantee that current levels of support will be maintained, or will we see cuts to services as Labour tightens its belt to create the fiscal headroom to fund its pledges elsewhere?
The Conservative Manifesto outlined a broad slate of proposals to enhance services for ex-servicemen and woman, but beyond these there are even bigger areas that Labour should be looking at if they are serious about veterans.
The primary function that the new Minister for Veterans’ Affairs should undertake is an end-to-end review of all welfare services under Veterans UK, including a review of the Veterans UK brand itself.
This should be coupled with a through-life review of veterans’ welfare services, and personnel made aware of them whilst still serving. Effectively communicating the support available and how it is accessed is a key aspect of encouraging self-referral, but at present information is at best patchy and often poorly communicated via social media platforms and opaque websites.
A better online platform could alleviate this access issue. The Government must enhance the Veterans Gateway to provide a single point of entry into the welfare space. At present, such services for veterans are largely interacted with separately, despite the fact that many veterans who require assistance have needs that are closely interlinked.
A one-stop shop Veterans Gateway would be able to provide ex-service personnel with ease of access to the welfare services they provide, and the Government with a simpler way of tracking the services that had been accessed. Coupled with the rollout of Veterans ID cards that evidence eligibility, a holistic and joined up approach to veterans welfare, facilitated by a platform that simplifies access, could avoid people falling between the cracks.
The role of the Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees should also be reviewed. Despite a Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committee Bill being passed last year, the role of the VAPCs is yet to be clearly defined and the body has suffered from a lack of investment. With the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs now under the MoD, ownership of the VAPCs would be a sensible thing to place directly under that ministerial brief.
Given the opportunity to leverage the knowledge and experience of veterans in an official advisory capacity across 12 regional panels, the Government should be encouraged to clearly define their remit and make them a key conduit into defining policy and providing grassroots feedback from the breadth of their local experience. (The current disconnect frustrated me hugely during my own tenure as a committee member.)
It remains to be seen how effective Labour’s inchoate veterans’ policy turns out to be. The absence of specific detail is a significant concern, as is the lack of representation at cabinet by the minister. There is a suspicion that, despite their previous fanfare, Labour will not prioritise veterans.
But with a Veterans’ Affairs Minister who knows better than most the debt that we owe our troops, it should be hoped that they will have a champion within their ranks who will have the moral courage to fight for veterans.
Though the cohort of veterans within parliament is smaller than it was prior to the election, it is now younger. It also sports members on both sides of the house who have more recent armed forces experience and crucially, more recent experience of the often-difficult transition to civilian life.
Parliament is well placed to champion veterans’ affairs – I know the opposition benches certainly will be.
