The government is failing forces personnel by relying on “guesswork” to assess the scale of veteran suicide, an MP has said.
Meanwhile, ministers are “peddling problematic and compromised” ideas about the numbers of veterans affected, according to Stephen Morgan.
Morgan, Labour MP for Portsmouth South, raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions last week. Along with armed forces charities, he is pressing for veteran suicides to be recorded by coroners as they are in other countries so that there is some reliable data on the subject.
It follows a Westminster Hall debate on April 3 in which he challenged veterans minister Tobias Ellwood on the lack of data.
“All Call Signs, Combat Stress, the health minister, the former head of the armed forces, the former commander in Afghanistan and many more have all called for the government to start recording veteran suicide,” Morgan said after the debate.
“The minister himself conceded its importance, what he did not do is commit to a plan to implement these changes.