‘I will deliver my promised ID cards for veterans, even if it breaks me’
Johnny Mercer is back in Cabinet and on a mission – to help those who have served in Armed Forces
Twice sacked and three times appointed, Johnny Mercer is back in Cabinet and back on a mission. The Minister for Veterans Affairs sits in his sparse office (he hasn’t had time to hang up any pictures since being fired from the same room two months ago by Liz Truss), having given himself two years to help the estimated 2.4 million former armed services personnel now under his watch.
On the eve of Remembrance Day, Mercer is pledging that by next summer, all those ex-troops will be in receipt of a veterans identity card. In a candid interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mercer, 41, said that the new identity cards would play a pivotal role in ensuring veterans had speedy access to vital health, housing and charity services.
The move was immediately welcomed by veterans’ charities, which said that the cards were important for those former soldiers who had lost their way after leaving the military. The cards give them back “their sense of identity; their sense of belonging”, said one.
Mercer isn’t stopping there. After a difficult seven weeks out of office – by his own admission he drank too much after it “sucked the air out of me”– he has hit the ground running. In the intervening time, his office had been shut down, locked up and remained vacant. In the yo-yo world of Tory leadership, Mercer is back in favour.
A survey will be sent to every veteran in the coming months asking them about their experiences in civilian life, looking for solutions to make their lot better. The national census last year for the first time asked recipients if they had ever been a member of the Armed Forces, giving the newly created Office for Veterans’ Affairs a much clearer picture of how many former service personnel are out there, how old they are, and where they live. Mercer and his team will use that information to make sure society is not letting them down after years of concern over suicides and adverse mental health.
He is also pressing ahead with his own controversial Legacy and Reconciliation Bill that effectively prevents former soldiers from being prosecuted in courts over killings during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Bill also gives the same protections to terrorists – provided they cooperate with a form of truth and reconciliation commission – and few in Northern Ireland support it.
He had become close friends with Dennis Hutchings, who at the age of 80 had gone on trial over the shooting of a man in County Tyrone in 1974. Hutchings, who suffered from heart and kidney failure, contracted Covid during his trial in Belfast and died miles from home and without his loved ones around him.
Mercer had promised his friend that he would end future prosecutions and is determined to see that through.
“The experiences of people like Dennis Hutchings cannot be repeated, and that’s a very, very difficult and delicate line that we’re trying to tread,” says Mercer, a former Army captain who served in Afghanistan.
He had been at Hutchings’s side during the trial, showing support above and beyond where most MPS would ever go. He is all too aware of the upset the Bill has caused the victims of terrorists, who may never now see justice. But he insists the Bill will put victims first, adding: “You have got to operate in the real world, not as you would like it to be,” he explains.
On Remembrance Sunday, Mercer will attend the national service at the Cenotaph, a stone’s throw from his office. It is the first time he has been invited, despite having been the minister in charge of veterans’ affairs (off and on) for the past three years, proof he says that Rishi Sunak is the first Prime Minister who recognises the need for a properly resourced and supported Office for Veterans Affairs, its presiding minister sitting in Cabinet.
“Remembrance Sunday is a seminal national moment. But what we are trying to do in this office is ask what is it really like to be a veteran in the UK in 2022? We are trying to grapple with the size of the problem.”
He also promises to fix the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, which veterans and their families seeking recompense for illness, injury and even death have found needlessly bureaucratic at times. “It is a question of volume and a question of outdated practices,” he says, pointing out that until recently the scheme was entirely paper-based, making it timeconsuming and more complex.
On Mercer’s sacking by Ms Truss in September, he says: “It was such a gut punch.” Two months on, he is moving on and now rises above the fray.
“I think people are very quick to forget the human side of politics,” he says. “I was very clear that I was not happy with the way Liz Truss was running the Government. But behind that there is a human being, there is a mother. Sometimes we can all go a bit too far in this stuff.”
His focus is on veterans and he knows he has two years to make a difference. But he is wary of emulating the US, where veterans are applauded in the street and which is more overt in its embrace of former soldiers.
“This country is never going to be – and neither would I personally want it to be – the sort of place where veterans get on an aircraft first. We are a fundamentally different culture and a different relationship. But we have got big things to deliver. This veterans ID card I am absolutely determined to deliver on that. It is an extremely important issue to veterans groups.”
There have been problems and “technical challenges” in introducing it, but Mercer says: “I am determined to deliver on that even if it breaks me because we have to get that over the line. I will get it done within the next 12 months. I want to get it out the door by the middle of next year. I will relentlessly pursue that.”
Military charities tell him that their biggest challenge now is “identifying somebody as a veteran”. It causes huge delays and prevents veterans from accessing services they are entitled to.
The Legacy and Reconciliation Bill he owes to Hutchings. “It is no secret that I don’t find this existence I have created for myself particularly easy,” he says. “But he told me to never, ever quit, to never give up and for the first time he felt there was someone on their side and that has lived with me.
“I do feel this enormous pressure of expectation but it is easier when you have a prime minister like I do now and you are in a position to pull the levers and do something about it.”
He is candid about his own mental health. “Life is full of ups and downs and I definitely didn’t take what happened in September particularly well but the key to these things is to talk to people, to be brutally honest with yourself and your family.
“Ultimately my message to people with problems with mental health is to reach out for help. Crucially you can get better. Never, ever give up.”
He remains committed to the military and would still ”want my kids to serve”, adding: “I still maintain it’s the best start any person can have in life.”
‘You have got to operate in the real world, not as you would like it to be’