Open letter from Tonia Antoniazzi MP to forces personnel, veterans and their families in Gower

I have always been proud of our Armed Forces and, I want the UK to be the best country in the world for veterans.

Making that ambition for our veterans a reality in Gower and Swansea requires the Government to do much more to support local services and employment opportunities for those leaving the armed services.

It also requires Parliament fix the problem of vexatious legal claims and investigations that has made the lives of too many of our troops a misery after serving in overseas conflicts.

The Government’s Overseas Operations Bill is meant to deal with this problem but it would have done nothing to help 99 percent of those put through the trauma of repeat investigations after Iraq and Afghanistan, while worse still it removes rights of troops and their families to claim against the MoD when its failings lead to injury or death.

I want you to be aware there is still the chance to change this legislation in Parliament, and Labour has been working to build a broad consensus behind the changes needed to make the Bill fit for purpose. But this needs Conservative MPs to change their stance. On 3 November Tory MPs voted to do three things:

• Strip British Forces personnel serving overseas of their right to claim compensation from the MoD for injuries; these are basic employment rights that all of us as citizens continue to enjoy.
• Reject changes to the Bill to deal with the flawed system of investigations; so the Bill only deals with the prosecution system that would not have helped in more than 99% of cases against our veterans.
• Reject Labour’s proposal for a new duty of care standard on the MoD to provide legal, pastoral and mental health support to Forces personnel who have been accused; those who have been through the trauma of long-running investigations often say they felt ‘cut adrift’ by the MoD and by their chain of command.

 
I am inviting veterans and their families in Gower to write to me with their experiences of going through investigations and give their views on how we can offer more protection and support to them.

I have also written to local branches of the Royal British Legion to ask their members to do the same.

If you'd like to share your experience, please email me at tonia.antoniazzi.mp@parliament.uk. 

​Working together, we can help to provide the support our service personnel really need.