 The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 4061 in the name of Maurice Corry. On combat stress, finds veterans in Scotland face higher levels of deprivation than those in the rest of the UK. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. With those members who wish to speak in the debate, please press the request to speak buttons now in our call, Maurice Corry, to open the debate. Mr Corry, please, seven minutes. Please could I ask the public to leave quietly so that we can hear Mr Maurice Corry in a very important debate. I thank members who supported my motion, allowing this debate to take place today. I would also like to welcome today the staff members who have come from combat stress to join us in the public gallery. I welcome them here and all the work that they do throughout the years to help our veterans and our armed forces personnel. Many of my colleagues will know that I am a veteran myself, so the subject of veterans' mental health is one that I feel very strongly about. I have campaigned enthusiastically to ensure that the veterans' issues are not overlooked for many years, first as a councillor in Argyll and Bute Council and now as an MSP for West Scotland. I believe passionately that the veterans should get recognition that they deserve for serving our country, which is why combat stress findings that veterans in Scotland face the greatest risk of deprivation in both levels of income and employment and is a great concern for me and something that needs to be addressed. I visited recently combat stress Holybush House centre in Ayrshire and was impressed with the service that they are offering and very much recognised this service as being absolutely vital to our forces and our veterans and also is now fully recognised by the national health service. Combat stress was started in 1919 and has built up an excellent service to our veterans and also to our serving armed forces personnel. I think that it is important to firstly note that the fact that we are even able to have an open debate today about the impact of mental health issues amongst veterans is a huge step forward. It has previously been an issue that many service personnel were reluctant to accept. However, by talking about it and trying to help those who do unfortunately suffer from poor mental health, we are helping to get rid of the stigma that still surrounds mental health and this is a huge achievement. I do believe that it is also worth mentioning the great strides forward which the MOD are taking in helping to fight issues surrounding mental health within the ranks of the armed forces. Combat stress is multiple deprivation in help seeking UK veterans report, which I have a copy here, gives us an overview on the experiences of deprivation in a national sample of veterans with mental health difficulties. It helps to give us a better idea of how best to target specialised military support to veterans with mental health difficulties themselves. It is a survey of over 3,000 veterans registered with combat stress, which is the leading UK mental health charity. It has discovered that the veterans living in Scotland have higher levels of deprivation in income and employment than veterans living in the rest of the UK. In particular, I think that the finding that half of Scottish veterans registered with combat stress live in the most deprived three areas of Scotland is really quite shocking and something which needs to be addressed. Those veterans are already dealing with a range of complex mental issues, whether they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, so that it is a struggle enough for them to adjust back into the civilian world. Then you add to the fact that they are having to cope with higher levels of deprivation in income and employment and they are living in the most deprived areas of Scotland, and you begin to see why it is so vital that we need to do something to help. Given that many veterans who do not suffer from mental health issues struggle to deal with the transition from military to civilian life, we cannot begin to imagine how hard it is for that particular group of ex-servicemen and women. It is up to the Scottish Government to work with agencies and charities to minimise the challenges faced by veterans and mental health issues. The report highlights the inequalities that face veterans in Scotland and in terms of employment so that why I and I am sure everyone in this chamber welcome Eric Fraser's work as a Scottish Veterans Commissioner and his 19 recommendations. I was glad to see that the new strategic working group on employment has convened and that they held their first meeting last month and I look forward to hearing the outcome of that meeting and future meetings. I think that this is a very positive step in the right direction to ensure that veterans who settle in Scotland are not left disadvantaged from their military service but playing a full and productive role. A further area raised in the Congress's report was that it takes the average veteran 11 years to seek help after leaving the military. That brings me back to my previous point that, by even discussing this issue today in Parliament, we are making headway on the issue of mental health among veterans. It could be that a veteran does not recognise or want to admit that they are suffering from mental health issues. It does not seek help for many years or could it be that mental health symptoms do not set in until other events trigger them at a later date? Either way, our debate today and the work carried out by Combat Stress to produce this report sends a clear message to veterans who think that they could be suffering from poor mental health and that it is okay to admit that they need help and that there is help out there for them. The report sets out that those who waited the longest to seek help were the ones who could be found living in the most deprived areas. That demonstrates that it is crucial for the Scottish Government to support mental health organisations and encourage veterans to use the resources that are available to them and get help early. It is also important to note that, of those who fear multiple deprivation, there was a high proportion of early service leavers. That is a group who need to be continually supported as they have also the highest unemployment rates to ensure that they can get the best out of them as a transition into the civilian world. Maurice Corry has mentioned a number of times the responsibilities of the Scottish Government. Does he recognise any impact on deprivation for veterans from the welfare changes that have taken place in the UK Government in relation to housing benefit, disability benefits and war pensions? Does he recognise any impact from those changes that are impacting on veterans in Scotland? I thank you for your intervention, cabinet secretary. I understand where you are coming from, but, as we go forward, there are many charities and many organisations, and local authorities, from my experience, are willing to help those people to deliver help and the support that they need. In particular, under the mental health issues, combat stress is supplying that help so admirably. Deputy Presiding Officer, in conclusion, I repeat my thanks to those who have helped to ensure that they are able to hold this important debate here in the chamber today. I also thank combat stress for their research and for bringing us this report, and, most importantly, for their support for the many veterans who deal with mental health conditions on a daily basis. Thank you very much, Mr Corry. I call Mary Todd. We follow by Edward Mountain. Ms Todd, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you, Maurice Corry, for bringing forward this important debate. One of the first chats that I and Mr Corry had after we were elected was about veterans' mental health. We quickly realised that we had a common interest, so not only is this issue vitally important, it brings politicians together, even those from such diverse backgrounds and political views, as I and Maurice Corry. As many of you know, I worked in mental health for 20 years, and I now co-convene the cross-party group on mental health. One of the first meetings that we held was on veterans' mental health, and it was great to hear from combat stress at that meeting about the valuable work that they do to support veterans. While I welcome the report for highlighting the really important issue of multiple deprivation, I find that I cannot fully support the motion. The report analysed a sample of only 332 veterans who were seeking help from combat stress in Scotland. That is out of a total veteran population of over 400,000, so the point here is that any findings can only be generalisable to the group seeking support from combat stress and are not necessarily representative of the Scottish veteran community as a whole. The report clearly states on page 81 that each country reported the relative measure of deprivation independently, thus the measure cannot be used as a relative measure between the four countries and that conclusions cannot be drawn about the causality of associations. Veterans in Scotland were overrepresented in this study, with English veterans underrepresented. Compared to the general population and make-up of the UK as a whole, we need to be very cautious about drawing comparisons with other parts of the UK based on the findings of the report. The Scottish group were different in other ways, too. Those factors might have had more of an impact on the levels of deprivation that they suffer than the geography alone. They were more likely to have served in the armies and in the other forces. They were more likely to be single males. They were more likely to be an early service leaver, as Maurice Corry mentioned, and they had taken longer to seek help. I want to pick up particularly on the issue of being an early service leaver. The research that Dr Beverly Bergman presented at the cross-party group showed that the high risk of mental illness amongst the earliest leavers may reflect their pre-service vulnerabilities, which were not detected at the point of recruitment. Those became apparent during early training and lead to early discharge. Of course, poverty in childhood is a risk factor for later mental illness. Campaigns such as ForceWatt and Scottish Quakers earlier last year petitioned Holyrood to stop the high number of recruitment drives by the armed forces in schools in deprived areas. Their argument is that many veterans would have gone into the forces young and from the most deprived areas originally contributing to their lagging position when they leave the services. We all agree that veterans deserve the best possible support and care that society can offer across Scotland and the UK as a whole. The Scottish Government has a strong track record with supporting veterans, and I am sure that the cabinet secretary will list the many initiatives in his summing up. The UK Government, on the other hand, has presided over a rise in insecure employment, welfare cuts and ideologically driven austerity. That has contributed to a rise in homelessness and food bank use across the UK. Children, families, pensioners and veterans have all been pushed into poverty and crisis because of UK Government policies. Let's not forget that. Presiding Officer, I would like to thank you and Maurice Corry for allowing me to speak in this debate. It's actually a very important debate. I'm proud to declare at the outset, like Maurice Corry, that I've been a soldier and, furthermore, my son is a current soldier. I would also like to point out in light of the last comment that a lot of things have happened differently in the last 12 or so years in relation to serving soldiers in that they have been more on the front line than we ever have before. Although soldiers in the armed forces have since the Second World War served in over 100 different conflicts, they have not ever done so for such prolonged periods or, in many cases, for those amount of tours that have been done. I'm sure that we all recognise that stress disorders affect service personnel in a different way. Some know that they've got a problem and some don't. Some can cope and some cannot. Some know where to turn and some have no idea. Nothing is indeed simple. I found the report provided by the charity Combat Stress, an interesting and provocative paper, and I'd like to publicly thank them for it. As an ex-soldier, it did surprise me—sorry, it did not surprise me—that the majority of service personnel who suffered Combat Stress were from the army. It's easy to see that the horrors of getting up close and personal will be more traumatic, but nonetheless, not as vital as—sorry, I'm going to start that again—it's easy to see that the horrors of getting up close and personal will be traumatic and that the vital and somewhat indirect support that both the RAF and the Navy give don't take them that close to the front line. Let me be clear. I do not demean the vital roles that they play, but the way they serve is different. Turning to the report and some of the information that was provided was surprising but also very helpful, but it does give us some highly important flags that we need to use in relation to our veterans. It's immensely sad to me that it took on average over 11 years for people who suffer from Combat Stress to seek help. I'm not sure that the report identifies why this is, but we need to find out why and try to encourage veterans to come forward much earlier. I found it interesting that those sort help were just as likely to be married as single. However, it seems that soldiers who were single when they were exposed to combat were more likely to be affected. To me, it's clear that sharing the pain of one's experiences makes them easier to bear. I'd like to see further work to identify if those who were married were in a relationship presented earlier than those that were not. I also find it disappointing that some still find it difficult to identify combat stress-related disorders and that those early levers are more likely to suffer. This shows the need for further education while serving and longer-term support when leaving, especially if you leave before your time is up. Indeed, the support that the services give to serving soldiers over the longer period that they serve perhaps bears this out. All of these points, however, give us a strong guide what we must do. It appears to me that, for every five years, we should monitor those who have identified from the fags as being most likely to suffer from combat stress and ensure that they are offered the appropriate treatment. It is also clear that we need to offer a national treatment plan to deal with the issues, and that came across loud and clear in the report. I would like to turn to an issue that was highlighted in the report, and that is the fact that veterans living in Scotland in urban areas and those who are unemployed appear to be the greatest risk of deprivations. That in turn means that they are more likely to suffer from mental health difficulties. We must make sure that our veterans who are most vulnerable do not fall between the cracks. I therefore believe that an enhanced support package should be considered by the Scottish Government and local government under the armed forces charter. In conclusion, I would like to commend this excellent report. We have much to do to support our veterans. We need to tackle the problems that are faced by those in urban areas in Scotland that seem to make them more vulnerable to stress-related problems. We have been given some key pointers. We need to watch those people who are vulnerable. I call on the Scottish Government and the UK Government to deliver to those who have served us often in the most difficult of circumstances. I call Johann Lamont to be followed by Richard Lochhead. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I congratulate Maurice Corry on bringing forward this debate and an issue that I think is of central importance to the work that we should be doing both here and across the country. I have for a very short time had the privilege of being a Government minister. In that time, the greatest privilege of all was to be the veterans minister. I was struck with the power of the voices of those who spoke up for those who suffered in combat and who had their rights generally ignored. They were a group and a force to be reckoned with. It is because of their courage in campaigning for the rights of veterans that people across the parties said that this was something that across the party that we could agree on, that it was the job of the Government wherever you were in government to recognise the particular experience of veterans and our particular obligations to those who had sought to defend our country or who had sought to support peacekeeping across the world. While we may want to look at this debate about which Government may be responsible for particular difficulties, I know that at heart we all want to rise to the challenge that has been put before us by veterans, by combat stress and others to say that we have a particular responsibility to understand their needs and provide services in a way that best suits them. We also recognise, obviously, the particularly important question of mental health issues in a world in which we are becoming more progressive. We need to understand the particular impacts of those who have been in combat and recognise that, although general provision may be suitable, it is right to understand the need for particular provision supported by those who understand more than I could ever do what the consequence of what they have experienced has been. We need both general understanding but specific provision. It is also true in relation to whether it is housing or employment or other services. The question should be asked by those who are delivering the services. Is there a particular impact on veterans and is there a particular need that is being experienced that we need to taper and develop our services for, and particularly for those who do not want even to seek help? I know that there has been progress in this regard. All of us, I think, need to reflect on the evidence in this report and elsewhere and rise to its challenge. There is an understandable desire to look at where the report is not reflecting properly the range of differences across the whole of the United Kingdom. To me, the biggest message that this report presents is that there are people who are suffering in our country as veterans and wherever we have our levers of power, we need to use those powers to support and address those concerns. Maybe I say this because I am very far away from power, but the job of Government is to look at the evidence, listen to the voices and address those concerns where you have the ability to do so. Dr David Webbs produced a report this week on the issue of sanctions. People like nurses, social workers and social care workers will tell us what is happening in the real world with the provision of services and the impact of disability sanctions. What does that tell me when we talk about the veterans who are suffering in a whole range of different ways as others are? Do not silo your policy on disability or in budget decisions around local government away from the impact of the people who will suffer as a consequence. We will be strengthened in our resolve to support veterans if we look to the evidence and then develop the policy and fund it that will make a difference to the people that we are talking about here, but more generally. I congratulate combat stress and all those veterans who have given voice to the needs and experience of those who have served this country. Our job now is to make sure that wherever we have influence, we develop policy that meets the needs that they have identified. Richard Lochhead is called by Peter Chapman. I add my congratulations to Maurice Corry for securing this debate, which does highlight a number of very important issues and notwithstanding Moritaw's very valid points. I think that the actual themes highlighted by the report and in this debate are extremely important, and we should continue to debate them in the times ahead. I also want to recognise that veterans issues have received such a much higher profile in recent years, especially since devolution in terms of Scottish issues in this Parliament, and the current Government, of course, brought forward the First Minister for Veterans Issues, the Veterans Fund and appointed the country's first Veterans Commissioner. That together is giving a much greater focus to many of the very serious and difficult issues facing the veteran community in Scotland. MSP for Murray, which I believe must have, if not the highest, one of the highest concentrations of veterans living in one particular part of Scotland. I know many of them personally, myself, who are friends and neighbours, and I know many of the issues that they have to cope with in everyday life in the years since they have left the various services. I am also aware of the very valuable contribution that is made by Combat Stress, and many other organisations who are now out there doing their best to offer practical support advice and so on. I congratulate Combat Stress on this report. Yes, there are parts that require much further research, and I hope that the minister will respond to that when he is closing the debate. However, we have to be concerned by any report that says that a survey of 3,000 veterans that those living in Scotland are more susceptible under this report to living in areas of multiple deprivation, and all the issues that that brings. There are a couple of issues that we want to quickly highlight in the report. Firstly, there is the fact that, as Maurice Corry and others have indicated, the report does say that a fifth of veterans' access and care at Combat Stress are early service leavers, and early service leavers are at most risk of mental illness and three times more likely to commit suicide. That is quite an alarming conclusion in the report, which we have to take seriously and delve further into. It also highlights the need to make sure that support is available at appropriate times for early leavers from the services. Again, the report says that there is still a significant overall delay between leaving the armed forces and seeking help, as it says in page 11 of the report. That makes it extremely important that the services are available and that veterans leaving the services know that the services are available. I like the idea that the one-stop shops are being created. I know that there are many organisations doing good work across the country, but the veterans' first point that has been set up, and there are now eight centres across Scotland offering a one-stop shop, is a very important way forward. Just to be parochial and talk about the issues in Murray for a second, there is a veterans' first point in Inverness, and there is one in Aberdeen Servants and Grampian. Despite the fact that the organisation says that the main focus for veteran interface actually occurs in Elgin in Murray, we do not have a veterans' first point in Murray, which, as I said before, has a particularly high concentration of veterans living in the local community. Perhaps that is something that the organisation is no doubt looking at at the moment and will continue to look at at the moment. However, it does have a drop-in location at the Elgin resource centre. Indeed, the MOD has just seconded a nurse to work there alongside the NHS and other organisations. I think that it is important to make sure that the support is available, but the veterans know where to access the support, otherwise there is no point of having available if they do not know where to go. I hope that we can build on their good work moving forward. I also think that the cabinet secretary should reflect on his own intervention earlier on and look further into the impact of the UK Government's welfare reforms and other policies on exacerbating poverty fuel stop in Scotland, which, according to his report, will have a disproportionate impact on veterans. We have to understand what that impact will be. I hope that the cabinet secretary will perhaps commission some more work into some of the themes that emerge from the report, as well as the impact of his own policies, and particularly, in this case, the UK Government's welfare reform policies as well. Thank you. I call Peter Chapman, the last speaker in the open debate. Mr Chapman, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. First, I thank my colleague Maurice Corry for bringing this important debate to Parliament today. It is worrying to think that so many of our service personnel who have served their country and put their life on the line to keep us safe find life so difficult on coming out of the forces. The report, conducted by veterans' mental health charity Combat Stress, presented some particularly distressing information. One of the most concerning was the fact that it took, on average, 11 years for the people in need of support to ask for that help, and I wonder why so long. Another notable statistic was the fact that nearly one in five were early service leavers. Those people obviously need closer observation and more support in the early years of coming out of the forces. The report was based on a sample of over 3,000 veterans, all of whom were active clients with combat stress. Combat stress is the largest provider of community and residential evidence-based mental health interventions in the UK after the NHS. It is also the leading specialist clinical service provider for veterans, with some services commissioned by the NHS. The majority of the sample of the report were male—that is highly surprising—with an average age of 48. Of the sample, 48 per cent were in a relationship and 52 per cent were single. The majority of the folk in the survey had served in the army—87 per cent from the army—only 7 per cent in the navy and 6 per cent in the air force. However, that split is not surprising, as army personnel are much more likely to be in the front line and in close contact with the horrors of war. What was a surprise to me was the very low number of only 4 per cent who were in receipt of a pension. Perhaps the most significant finding was that veterans living in Scotland appeared to be at the greatest risk of deprivation compared to those anywhere else in the UK, with combat stress chief executive Sue Freith stating that the findings highlight the significant challenges that Scottish veterans face. Those challenges are in contrast with those living in Northern Ireland, where, on average, there is less risk of deprivation. I wonder what they are doing different in Northern Ireland. Further, 63 per cent of those who left their service early in Scotland were in the three most deprived areas, but of those who left after 15 years or more, only 32 per cent fell into the most deprived categories, a trend that is not echoed across the rest of the UK. This is a distressing report in many ways, and I hope that it is the beginning of a more caring and supportive regime for members of the armed forces as they leave and return to civilian life. Given that we now know many of these vulnerable ex-servicemen and women spiral into homelessness, debt and mental stress in the first few years as civilians, we must put in place mechanisms of support and monitoring over a period of time to help them to adjust to life away from the forces. It is surely the least that we can do for them as they were prepared to commit the ultimate sacrifice for us to maintain our freedoms and our safety. I therefore call on the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government to devise a strategy of support to address the obvious difficulties that arise upon leaving the forces. A civilised society, Presiding Officer, can do nothing less. Thank you very much. I call on Keith Brown to close the cabinet secretary's seven minutes of their abouts, please. I would also congratulate Maurice Corry on bringing this debate to the chamber and to acknowledge and commend Maurice Corry and Edward Mountain for their lenti service in the armed forces. The Scottish Government has worked tirelessly in support of the armed forces and veterans community. It has been acknowledged across the chamber many times in the past. We have a commitment to ensuring that the armed forces, veterans and their families receive the best possible levels of support. We set that out in the renewing of our commitments document in 2016. Much progress has been made from support on housing to ensuring that, from 1 April this year, veterans who receive social care in Scotland will receive the full value of their ward pensions, and that is thanks to £5 million of funding. In relation to combat stress, we are lucky here in Scotland to have so many excellent charities and organisations that provide a range of support to veterans and their families. Combat stress is one that plays, as we have heard, a major role in supporting those veterans suffering from mental health. They offer a full range of specialist mental health assessment treatment, education, advice and support to help recovery and improve quality of life for veterans across Scotland. The Scottish Government is funded by the tune of around £1.24 million per year and £200,000 in the last year for community outreach work. Three years of funding up to 2018 will comprise £3.6 million in partnership with NHS Scotland for veterans resident in Scotland at their Holybush house facility in here, which has been mentioned. It is also worth remembering that those using that service make up a small percentage of those who have served in the UK Armed Forces. It is also true to say that we have made available £1.1 million through the Scottish Veterans Fund since its creation in 2008, supporting 144 projects. We have appointed, as Richard Lochhead mentioned, the first Scottish Veterans Commissioner in 2014, established a network of armed forces and veterans champions in our local authorities and other public bodies. We have also published in 2016 the newing our commitments document that I mentioned and our desire for Scotland to be the destination of choice for those leaving the armed forces wherever they come from across the UK. We have made, I think, great strides in promoting that message, although there is still no question about a small but very important number of veterans who struggle to make the transition to civilian life. Although overall, our veterans and their families are unquestionably true assets to their communities, to their employers and to this country. The report, from combat stress, was based on responses from just over 300 Scottish veterans. It explores only the experiences of veterans who were already engaging with that organisation. It has been pointed out that there are a huge number of veterans in Scotland or those who make Scotland their home. Further, the report is clear that each country—and it is important to bear this in mind—reported a relative measure of deprivation independently, so no direct comparison could be made between the different countries. Although the simple point is that those who require to have assistance in this regard, in relation to deprivation in particular, have to be treated on their own merits, regardless of how things are elsewhere. I, for my part, accept that more can be done, and that there is no question that veterans struggling to make ends meet just like other members of society, as Johann Lamont mentioned. I met some of those veterans earlier on this week at the coming home centre for veterans in government, and Maurice Corry also attended that event. The message that I hear is that decisions that are taken by the UK Government that are driving people into hardship, poverty and deprivation, are preeminent. Around £1 billion has been cut from welfare spending in Scotland by 2020-21, with a £0.2 billion cut due to changes coming into force this year alone. We will continue to strive to protect the most vulnerable and those on low incomes by mitigating the worst impacts of those cuts. For example, in relation to the bedroom tax, we have made sure that nobody has had to pay the bedroom tax. We are already taking action on reducing poverty. Our Fairer Scotland action plan sets out 50 concrete aims that will help to veterans and others over the course of this Parliament in trying to tackle inequality. We have invested more than £350 million to mitigate UK Government welfare reform and to support low-income families, and we have established a £1 million fair food fund as well. I recognise the point that was made about the length of time that it takes veterans to come forward. I have made suggestions two years ago to the MOD that they could help with simply by making sure that the records for somebody who is leaving the armed forces have to go to a designated GP when they leave the armed forces. That way, the falling between the cracks that happen when somebody leaves the armed forces and then, sometimes, as we all know, they do not take up either some of the other assistance that is available because they do not want to do that and that is their right, or they do not take health support because they have not had to do that in a civilian setting perhaps for a number of years. If you send that stuff, if you send the medical records to a GP designated by the service leaver, they then know who they are dealing with, they know the background of the person that they are dealing with, they know the experience that they have had in the armed forces and, of course, they will make sure that there is at least a very first check with that veteran. That seems to me like a straightforward and sensible way to try and deal with it. It will not be the only way to deal with it. There will be other things that have to be done as well, but a straightforward and sensible way to deal with it. It is true, and I have seen this over the years that I have been the veterans minister. The MOD started off, and senior people in the armed forces started off with the view that those that have been recruited from areas of deprivation, essentially it was that condition that we got them in, and if that is the condition in which they leave us, then that is their lookout. That has changed over recent years. I have seen a much more enlightened approach, where it is quite simply the case that if it is the case that the armed forces in Scotland and elsewhere have recruited disproportionately from areas of deprivation, there is an on-going responsibility not just of the armed forces but of the state itself to look after those people, not least because of the point that is being made because of the service that they have given. I think that there are things that we can do. I am more than happy to look at commissioning the work that was suggested by Richard Lochhead. I do not think that there is any reason why the cross-party group is up for them to decide what they want to do. We would not also want to look at some of the impact of welfare changes in terms of the deprivation that veterans suffer here in Scotland. That is entirely up to them. We will look further into that. However, I hope that my response has helped to reassure the chamber of the Scottish Government's wholehearted and on-going support for our armed forces in the veterans community. As has been said by Peter Chapman, we should be doing that, not least because they have been prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in defence of the freedoms that we all enjoy. If we have any conscience, we should recognise that service, recognise that sacrifice and make sure that we do everything that we can to help those veterans who, when they come out of the armed forces—and it is important to recognise that point—it is said to me all the time by veterans organisations that the vast majority of people come out of the armed forces and managed to go into civilian life with virtually no issues. There are others who do not and those who do not deserve our full support. For that reason, I think that it is appropriate once again to commend Maurice Corry and bring this debate to the chamber.