WITNEY MP Robert Courts used Prime Minister’s Questions today to praise the new mental health initiative aimed at supporting members of the Armed Forces, launched by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Royal Foundation, and Prince Harry this month. 

The initiative outlines how the department will improve the mental health of its serving military, personnel, their families, and veterans. 

It will see the Royal Foundation provide advice and resources to the MOD to improve training, education and information sharing for all Armed Forces. 

Resources will be given and staff training will start, as part of the initiative, from the middle of 2018. 

Mr Courts, who took over the constituency seat from former Witney MP David Cameron, asked Prime Minister Theresa May to join him in welcoming the joint initiative.

He said: “The mental health of our service men, women and their families is rightly gaining the attention it deserves.

"Would the Prime Minister join with me in welcoming the initiative between the MoD and the Royal Foundation that ensures targeted support across the whole of the Armed Forces family?”

The Armed Forces is important to Mr Courts as he is co-chair of The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Armed Forces whose purpose is to promote better understanding of Britain's forces, in parliament.

Theresa May replied: “I’m very happy to welcome the initiative that my Honourable Friend refers to. Mental health is an issue that we know we need to address more carefully and with greater attention in general. 

"But the issue of mental health concerns for those in the Armed Forces and those who have left the Armed Forces is a very real challenge that we need to face. They have put their lives on the line for us and we owe it to them.”

The APPG for Armed Forces are a group of cross-party MPs who seek to increase understanding of service men and women and raise awareness of their contribution.

The group aim is to represent their interests and give them a voice in Parliament. 

The conversation comes after Tuesday's Parliamentary debate in which Mr Courts slammed the sudden closure of Witney's Deer Park Medical Centre, the proposed changes to the Horton General Hospital in Banbury, and the controversial Sustainability Transformation Plan consultation which is aiming to redraw health services across the county.