My Lords, I acknowledge that the Government have made some good progress in improving the services to veterans, but the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, touched on an important point about the social form of support. We are not talking about a single firm; we are talking about a three-year period to adjust. It is all very well to say that many veterans leave the forces with attractive skills, but a rather important number of veterans leave with the skill of how to kill people, and there is not a great deal of call for that in civilian life. A very structured society under military laws has, in a lot of cases—not the majority, by any means—been good for people who come in with a difficult lifestyle and a certain waywardness; it works for them. But if they come into the civilian world and that falls away, without a specific set of skills they find it difficult.
We are talking about not just settling down but building up a CV in these three years. As I said, I conversed with some individuals, and a point made to me by one person—it was some time ago—was that his CV for employers was rather weak. He needed to prove not only that he was a good chap in the military but that he had been a good citizen in perhaps not particularly exciting jobs, which then allowed his career to progress. I would hate the Government to get into a position where they had to argue for this programme being, in a sense, underfunded—that they thought it generally speaking a good idea, but would look too mean and, in saving a little, would allow victory to escape. As ever, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.