The Veterans Pledge: What now?

With the General Election 2024 complete, we take stock of our successes during the run-up; and look ahead to the coming months and years of a new Labour Government... 

The Campaign - Key Outcomes

With the support of over 33,000 signatories, we successfully urged the UK’s political leaders to outline the importance of veterans and members of the Armed Forces community throughout their own campaigns.  

An impressive 1,170 supporters also wrote to their local candidates, adding significant pressure, and ensuring we have many new MPs in Parliament ready to help us build on the campaign. Over 50 candidates, spanning all major parties, publicly showed their support to the Veterans Pledge. 

Party leaders committed to delivering a range of policies, including a number from Help for Heroes own 2024 policy manifesto. On 29 June, Rishi Sunak, the Conservative Party leader, also signed the Veterans Pledge – a testament to the passion of those who supported the campaign. 

The Pledge was also officially backed by The Sun and The Express, who urged party leaders to support our cause

The New Government 

During their campaign, Labour committed to putting the Armed Forces Covenant fully into law and establishing an independent Armed Forces Commissioner to improve service life. They also promised veterans will have access to vital support across mental health, employment and housing, and to scrap visa fees for non-UK veterans, who have served for four or more years, and their dependents. 

Since then, Labour have announced that their newly appointed Minister for Veterans, Al Carns, will not be attending Cabinet and that, instead, Defence Secretary John Healey will represent veterans at that level.

The King's Speech

The King's Speech on 17 July 2024 set out the new Prime Minister's legislative agenda and his government’s upcoming priorities. 

We are ready to work alongside policymakers to ensure all government departments recognise their responsibilities to veterans and their families. As our Veterans Pledge campaign highlighted, too many veterans are having to fight the system to get the compensation and financial support they deserve – often while battling physical or mental illness and injuries from service. The case for policy change and the removal of these unfair barriers is clear. 

We welcome the Labour Party’s election manifesto commitment to enshrine the Armed Forces Covenant fully into law. However, a wider range of policy areas must be covered by the Covenant, in order for it to fully benefit the Armed Forces community.

The commitment to create an independent Armed Forces Commissioner also presents an opportunity to commission an end-to-end review of the medical discharge process.  

This is a moment of change for the United Kingdom – and over the coming weeks and months we, at Help for Heroes, will do everything it takes to make sure the needs of veterans are met by the new Government.   

We can’t do any of this without your support. If you’re in a position to make a monthly donation, please set one up today and help get the support that veterans in our country need.