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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Spellar): I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman cannot accept scientific analysis. Once again, he has come up with emotive arguments, but has not dealt with the fundamental issue, which is that two scientific studies, properly published, have indicated no greater incidence of cancers and other conditions among nuclear test veterans compared with the general population. If there is an argument to be made against those studies, a proper scientific study must be carried out, published and subjected to proper scientific criticism. That is the way in which we make decisions; we do not base our decisions on arguments that do not use objective figures or on emotive statements.
Mr. Hancock: That is a fair challenge, but let me challenge the Minister. These people do not have the resources or the scientific background to do what he says that they should do. They are normal men who, when they did their service for this country, were subjected to duties that no one in this room today would volunteer to carry out, and they and their children have suffered because of that. Lives have been lost.
Is the Minister prepared to state that the Ministry of Defence will fund a study on behalf of the veterans--a final conclusive study? Will he take up the matter with the veterans, make them that offer and give them the opportunity that they need? They do not have the necessary resources to do it themselves--many of the men are now in their late 60s and early 70s, and many have not worked for many years because of illness. Do not, in a cavalier and dismissive way, suggest that someone will finance a £1-million study--that is not a viable suggestion. The Minister uses the same excuse that the Conservative Government used. Let us be more constructive and more helpful to the veterans.
The second issue is that of the Gurkha soldiers, and I am delighted that so many hon. Members have already raised it. My association with the Gurkhas in Hampshire
goes back 20 years. I was proud on behalf of the county to present the Gurkhas with the freedom of Hampshire in recognition of their long and devoted service to the nation and the role that they have played in the community of Hampshire, especially in the Church Cookham and Aldershot area.
I welcome the promise of the Minister for the Armed Forces to review the position, but the tripartite agreement between India, Nepal and the United Kingdom is flawed, because there is, in effect, a veto on the part of Nepal and India. We all know that we have done a great injustice to the Gurkhas and their families, who have served this country so well. No one can doubt their commitment--one only has to spend five minutes in the museum in Winchester to learn what those men have done for this country during the past 100 years.
Mr. Cotter:
I am sure that we welcomed the commitment made by the Minister this afternoon to carry out some sort of review, but does my hon. Friend accept that we are talking about Sergeant Balaram, who died only two weeks ago and whose family is in grave circumstances? Should we not be insisting that something be done now in respect of that individual case--perhaps a discretionary payment or some other such measure?
Mr. Hancock:
Of course we should, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will address that issue when he winds up the debate. Both Gurkha soldiers died in the service of this country; both died to save the lives of others. What a pity it is that the families of both are not entitled to the same compensation to safeguard their future. Both of them gave their lives on behalf of this nation and its ideals, so we should at least extend the courtesy of ensuring that both of them can be treated the same way in death and that the compensation due to the families of both of them is the same. We should not discriminate because the family of one of them happens to live on the side of mountain in Nepal, rather than in the United Kingdom.
The issue is not merely that of pensions, but of the rights of Gurkha soldiers when they cease to serve as soldiers. I have made representations to both the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office on behalf of Gurkha ex-soldiers who have not wanted to return to Nepal, because their chances of obtaining work there are extremely slim. They now work as laundry men on Royal Navy ships, but they are being hounded out of Britain by the immigration service and told that, if they want those jobs, they will in future have to apply from Hong Kong, or they will have to apply in Nepal for citizenship. Do we treat soldiers from other countries who have served in the British Army the same way? I think not.
The Gurkhas have long since proved their devotion and commitment. It is about time that this nation stopped saying how grateful we are to them and how proud we are that they serve in our armed forces, and instead showed them how proud we are by treating them the same as other soldiers. Let us give the Gurkhas the equality that all Members of this House demand from each other.
The next issue is the on-going problem of asbestos-affected service men. I should like to bring the Minister's attention to the case of Mr. Leslie Terry,
of 4 Dale Park house, Portsmouth. Mr. Terry's case is well recorded and well documented and I wrote to the Minister for the Armed Forces about it. His reply was:
Mr. Terry served in the Royal Navy from the age of 19 until the end of the second world war. Throughout that time, he served on board ships and, because he was a stoker, he was exposed to the delagging of boilers. His life is now threatened by illness, and there is ample proof as to how and why the illness came about. It is not good enough for Ministers to say that, if exposure to asbestos occurred before 1987, this man has no claim. Asbestos does not recognise the artificial barriers that we have erected, and, when he joined the Royal Navy, Mr. Terry did not know that he would have no recourse to compensation.
No reasonable person would suggest that service men should be treated differently from the miners who have recently, and rightly, been given blanket compensation for illnesses related to the mining industry, with no discrimination based on when, how or where the illnesses were contracted. The same should now be given to service men, whether they served in the Royal Navy or the Army, and to civilian workers similarly affected. We need to tackle that issue. As the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, the hon. Member for Walsall, South said, we need also, with vigour and enthusiasm, to continue to address the issue of the Gulf war veterans.
We must also deal with the latest shameful example of the way in which the Ministry of Defence treats its personnel. I refer to the two crew members who were flying the Chinook helicopter than crashed on the Mull of Kintyre. Those men are dead and buried, but they are also shamed by the report of the latest inquiry, and that is unforgivable. Evidence now suggests that the inquiries were flawed, and the evidence used needs to be re-examined.
I did not, for one minute, accept a word of the Minister's answer to my question about that crash. I cannot believe that nobody in the Ministry of Defence recognises the moral obligation to re-examine that case. What effect do Ministry of Defence personnel think such cases have on the morale of pilots and ground crew? Those two officers--two of the top pilots in the RAF--have had their careers stained. It is bad enough that they were killed in that crash, but it is worse still that the stigma attached to them by the inquiries remains.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
In support of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the rules for the allocation of blame in such accidents state that dead flying crew personnel should never be blamed unless there is no doubt whatsoever that
Mr. Hancock:
I could not agree more. It is a shame on this nation that senior officers and Defence Ministers are prepared to allow that disgraceful situation to continue by not permitting another inquiry. I do not know what it would take to make the Minister reconsider that issue. If the report in Computer Weekly is not enough, sheer compassion towards the families of those two service men should be enough to make Ministers say, "Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, re-examine the case and take care of the problem."
"In the case of Mr. Terry, as his exposure to asbestos dust and fibre in the Royal Navy was before 15 May 1987, he is prevented by law from receiving compensation from the Ministry of Defence. The legal position is that even if an ex-Serviceman only now discovers he has asbestos related disease, he cannot sue for compensation if exposure was before the repeal of Section 10 of The Crown Proceedings Act 1947. Given that controls over the use of asbestos were introduced in 1970, this is and will be the case for the vast majority of ex-Service claimants. (The time between exposure to asbestos dust and fibre and the first signs of disease is typically between 15 and 40 plus years)."
Therefore, the MOD has no jurisdiction or right to help Mr. Terry.
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