BAFF

Friday, 23rd October 2009. 4:10pm By: George Conger, Religious Intelligence - News

The Anglican Bishop of Exeter has called on the Government to do more to help the families of members of the armed forces serving abroad.

Bishop Michael Langrish said that people in Devon were “very proud” of a long association with the forces but “deeply aware of the costs borne by service families”.

Reacting in the House of Lords to news that the Government would be sending more troops to Afghanistan, Bishop Langrish said: “Every further deployment of British forces brings an increased pressure on marriage and family life and, sadly, in some cases, consequential marriage and family breakdown."

He asked Lords Leader Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, who had repeated Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s statement on Afghanistan: “Will you assure the House that this increased deployment will be without an increase in back-to-back overseas tours of duty?

“What resources are being put in place to support service families and to ameliorate the effects of long-term overseas deployment?”

Lady Royall replied: “Twenty-four months is the harmony period that we should and must respect when troops go into different theatres.

“We and the military are doing everything possible to respect that period, and in the vast majority of cases it is being respected. We realise the immense pressures on the troops and their families.”

She said the Government had recently released a command paper dealing with the issue of support for families and the military was working with the Government to “ensure that there is proper support, not just for the soldiers when they come home but for the families and to ensure that there is childcare so that the wives and partners can go out to work and so on, if they wish to".