THE DEFENCE SECRETARY STEPS IN

THE DEFENCE Secretary, Gavin Williamson, deserves praise and gratitude. Today, on Mr Williamson’s orders, the Defence Ministry will open a 24-hour helpline for servicemen and women suffering from combat stress.

Many will have cause to be grateful in future for this necessary and compassionate move, for which The Mail on Sunday has been campaigning since the beginning of this year.

The helpline is guaranteed for at least ten years, and it is hard to see how any future government of any stripe could want to reverse Mr Williamson’s decision.

This laudable outcome is also a tribute to many others – especially to Warrant Officer Nathan Hunt, a comrade-in-arms of Prince Harry in Afghanistan.

This fine soldier took his own life after suffering severe and lasting stress. He had confided to fellow soldiers in the Royal Engineers that he was struggling to cope with the effects of battlefield trauma, and described the care provided to him by the Army as ‘useless’.

Others in this plight will now always have somewhere to turn, and this is surely a fitting memorial to him. Nothing can restore the honoured dead to us, alas, but if their loss helps to bring about genuine change for the better they have not died in vain. Many others in the Armed Forces, from General the Lord Dannatt down, have joined this campaign, and must today be feeling a quiet satisfaction that their good advice has been heeded.

Governments, and indeed senior military commanders, are not always ready to give way, even to good arguments made by good people. In this case, we can see what can be done when a free press, a grassroots discontent, a growing tide of military opinion, and an intelligent and flexible politician come together to make a good thing happen.