North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has this afternoon called for the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant to be upheld across Wales.
Speaking in the Welsh Conservative Debate on the Assembly Cross Party Group on the Armed Forces and Cadets' Inquiry into the impact of the Armed Forces Covenant in Wales, Mr Isherwood called the Welsh Government to consider the report’s 23 recommendations to improve support for Regulars and Reservists, veterans, their families and the bereaved.
He said:
“The Inquiry found that in order to uphold the Covenant, the Welsh Government should consider the appointment of an Armed Forces Commissioner for Wales to improve the accountability of public sector organisations for the delivery of the Armed Forces Covenant. The Commissioner should be required to publish an annual report to be laid in the National Assembly for Wales on adherence to the Covenant.
“A Commissioner would support the specific needs of veterans, represent these to Welsh Government – and properly scrutinise service delivery for veterans carried out by Welsh Government, NHS Wales and local authorities. As with the other recommendations in this report, this role has been supported and endorsed by the Armed Forces community and Armed Services Heads.”
He added: “The report also calls on the Welsh Government to establish a Welsh Armed Forces Privilege card scheme.
“Given the concerns over the capacity of Veterans NHS Wales to meet the demands of patients and its variable waiting times, the report recommended that funding for the service should be reviewed and increased, targets for access to the service should be established - and performance against the targets should be regularly published.
“Although the Welsh Government has announced £100,000 additional funding, Veterans NHS Wales told the Cross Party Group last year that they need £1 million annually to meet the mental health needs of the Armed Forces Community in Wales.”
Mr Isherwood added: “With the announcement that Combat Stress is scrapping residential care at its Audley Court Centre in Shropshire, we must also address concerns that Welsh Veterans will now be forced to travel across the UK for residential care because there is no provision in Wales.
“In recognition of the specific challenges faced by children from service families and in order to address the disadvantage compared to other parts of the UK, the report recommended that the Welsh Government should consider the introduction of a Service Pupil Premium.
“As the Royal British Legion states “in England, this has provided important practical support to Service Children in Education. Schools in Wales should have access to a similar fund for the approximately 2,500 children who currently attend school in Wales”.
The report also calls for: regional education consortia to appoint Armed Forces Champions; flexibility for Welsh secondary schools to allow the children of service personnel to be enrolled mid-term, as is already the case for infant classes; more schools to participate in the Cadet Expansion Programme; extension of the successful ‘Cymru’n Cofio – Wales Remembers’ First World War project to enable other important military anniversaries to be marked; and for the Welsh Government to work with the Welsh Local Government Association to ensure that all of Wales’ civic war memorials are adequately maintained - and with Wales’ military museums to establish travelling exhibitions.
Mr Isherwood concluded: “One hundred years after the signing of the treaty that led to the end of the First World War, this is a Covenant which must endure.”