Home secretary Suella Braverman talks with veterans in Fareham at Help for Heroes event

The Fareham MP attended a Help for Heroes ‘recovery event’ hosted by Westbury Museum in Fareham on Friday and spoke with attendees for over an hour.

Key issues raised during the conversation included the difficulty veterans can face claiming benefits, accessing support services and specialised medical treatment for amputees.

Mrs Braverman said: ‘I’ve had a good hour or so hearing from some of our local heroes.

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‘Fareham has one of the highest numbers of veterans in the country, a reflection of our close links with Portsmouth and Collingwood.

‘It was very useful to meet a group of veterans and hear their experiences about getting access to support and healthcare. I’m really proud that we have a dedicated veterans’ minister in government who sits in cabinet - Johnny Mercer - who is passionate about fighting and getting a better deal for veterans.

‘I think the government does accept we have challenges when it comes to paying energy bills and the economic chancellor’s just spoken about today when it comes to inflation. That’s why we’ve rolled out an extensive energy support package to help everybody with paying their energy bills. There are many measures that have been announced in the budget to help some of the most vulnerable in our society.’

Among those invited to meet with Mrs Braverman was Dave Taylor who spent 22 years in the army working primarily in forensics.

Dave said: ‘It was good to actually speak to someone face to face who we felt was concerned and actually cared about the issues that we had. Everyone’s feeling the pinch and veterans have got quite unique needs.

‘We’ve lost a lot of things in this area. For example, the military hospital in Haslemere even down to the respite centres that have been closed up and down the country.

‘When you spend 22 years or more in the army, navy or RAF, when you come back out into civilian street it's a whole new world because you’re leaving behind a career, a job, housing, family. You're effectively starting afresh and a lot of people in the community don’t understand those specific needs - the need to have camaraderie, to always have someone watching your back and supporting you. For me, I found that very difficult and it took a good five or six years before I started to find my way.’

Dave added that he feels veterans should have the same access to medical care as those currently serving in the military. Though no official commitments were made in the meeting, he expressed that Miss Braverman would ‘take care’ of several points raised.

Now a Help for Heroes ambassador, army veteran Spencer Bull was medically discharged in 2017 after 30 years of service.

Spencer said: ‘It was a fantastic opportunity for us as members of the veteran community to speak to the home secretary. Support relies heavily on service charities, such as help for heroes who do an amazing job.

‘It's not just the service personnel, it's their families and arguably they need it just as much if not more.

My priority at the moment would be with the veteran’s mobility fund. Money provided through the LIBOR fines has run out but the requirement for the mobility fund has not. There are many people who still need wheelchairs, prosthetics and they are high dependency and unfortunately what is available through the NHS does not meet the requirements.

Spencer added that many ex-servicemen would value having a ‘veteran ID card’ which became available in 2019 but have yet to be rolled out to those who left earlier.

Spencer said: ‘It would be nice to have. I’m used to carrying an ID card and had done for 30 years in the military.’

Also in attendance was Help for Heroes’ interim CEO James Needham.

James said: ‘We were grateful to Mrs Braverman for generously spending more than her anticipated time talking to veterans and representatives from the Charity.

‘It was a very constructive and cordial meeting and covered several issues important to veterans, including our call for the reinstatement of the Veterans Mobility Fund.

‘She confirmed she was taking away a number of points raised to look into, and we look forward to working with her and her colleagues in a constructive and beneficial manner moving forward.’

Help for Heroes regional leader Tristan Cooper helped to organise the event and described the day as ‘successful.’

Tristan said: ‘All the veterans present put real life experiences in front of the home secretary and more importantly being the MP for Fareham.

‘This is about people living their lives now and struggling to live out of service and to be able to access the services they need to live meaningful lives.

‘I think it's very important to raise the profile of issues that veterans find difficult in terms of their day to day life.

‘We were talking a lot about the mechanics of being able to claim benefits - that it is overly complicated and makes it very difficult for individuals to get the money they need and deserve in a timely fashion.’

The 2021 census found that 12.5 per cent of people who live in Gosport are veterans which is the highest proportion of any local authority in the UK. Services the UK has lost in recent years include Headley Court Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre in Surrey which closed in 2018.