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DEFENCE

Veterans' Challenge Fund

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): The Ministry of Defence is announcing today that it plans to allocate up to £2 million for veterans' projects over the next 3 years.

The new Challenge Fund will be used in co-operation with partners in the ex-Service organisations, Non Government Organisations and public sector to pump-prime new projects or research or buy into existing activities in order to give them a veterans-related dimension.

The Government want this fund to be used to help address the identifiable gaps in existing activity or knowledge that will need to be filled if we are to deliver the agreed Strategy for Veterans. The Strategy for Veterans identifies 3 key areas for further work: ensuring that as many Service personnel as possible make the transition from Service to civilian life successfully, that those who do not make a successful transition receive appropriate support, and that the contribution of the Services and veterans to national and international security is properly understood in wider society. The Government would like the Fund to be used to support a few projects in each area.

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Five hundred thousand pounds has been made available for the remainder of this Financial Year and up to £750,000 is planned for each of the next two Financial Years. Arrangements for the longer term will depend on the success of the Fund over this initial three-year period.

UK Gulf Veterans' Mortality Data

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): Mortality figures for the United Kingdom veterans of the 1990–91 Gulf Conflict from 1 April 1991 to 31 December 2002 were published on 27 January 2003, Official Report, columns 28–30WS. The latest data, as at 30 June 2003, are shown in Table 1 below. As before, the data for Gulf veterans are compared to that of a control group, known as the Era cohort, which is made up of Armed Forces personnel of a similar size, age, gender, Service, regular/reservist status and rank who were not deployed. Table 2 provides a detailed breakdown of deaths from cancer (neoplasm) by anatomical site.

On 23 July 2002, Official Report, column 910W, it was announced that the Ministry of Defence was discussing with the University of Manchester a detailed study of the factors underlying the figures for road traffic accident deaths. There are indications that the excess of motor vehicle accident deaths among Gulf veterans occurred principally during the first six years after the cessation of hostilities (to 31 March 1997) and that this trend has reversed in the following six years to 31 March 2003. Furthermore, the numbers of incidents are relatively small, the information on each accident is insufficiently detailed to allow meaningful analysis and a considerable amount of time has elapsed since 1 April 1991. Therefore, following the advice of the experts that have been consulted, we have decided not to commission the proposed study.

Table 1Deaths to UK Gulf veterans (Note: 1) 1 April 1991 to 30 June 2003 Causes (coded to ICD-9) (Note: 2)

ICD Chapter	Cause of death	Gulf	Era(3)	Mortality Rate Ratio(4)
	All deaths	600	613	0.97
	All cause coded deaths	586	599	0.97
I–XVI	Disease-related causes	243	300	0.81
I	Infectious and parasitic diseases	4	2	1.99
II	Cancers	105	124	0.84
III	Endocrine and immune disorders	1	6	0.20
V	Mental orders	13	15	0.86
VI	Diseases of the nervous system and sense organs	10	11	0.90
	(Note 5)
VII	Diseases of the circulatory system	82	106	0.77
VIII	Diseases of the respiratory system	11	6	1.82
IX	Diseases of the digestive system	15	18	0.83
IV, X–XVI	All other disease-related causes(Note 6)	2	12	0.17
EXVII	External causes of injury and poisoning	343	299	1.14
	Railway accidents	4	1	3.98
	Motor vehicle accidents	118	100	1.17
	Water transport accidents	5	1	4.98
	Air and space accidents	25	19	1.31
	Other vehicle accidents	0	1	0.00
	Accidental poisoning	14	15	0.93
	Accidental falls	8	8	1.00
	Accidents due to fire/flames	0	2	0.00
	Accidents due to natural environmental factors	2	2	1.00
	Accidents due to submersion/suffocation/foreign	17	7	2.42
	bodies
	Other accidents	31	29	1.06
	Late effects of accident/injury	0	2	0.00
	Suicide and injury undetermined whether	110	103	1.06
	accidentally or purposely inflicted
	Homicide	6	5	1.19
	Injury resulting from the operations of war	3	4	0.75
	Other deaths for which coded cause data are not yet available	11	10
	Overseas deaths for which cause data are not available	3	4

Notes:

⁽¹⁾1. Service and Ex-Service personnel only.

⁽²⁾2. World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases 9th revision, 1997.

⁽³⁾3. The Era group comprises 53,143 personnel, randomly sampled from all UK Armed Forces personnel in service on 1 January 1991 and who did not deploy to the Gulf. This group is matched to the 53,409 Gulf veterans to reflect the socio-demographic and military composition of the Gulf cohort in terms of age, gender, Service (Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force), officer/other rank status, regular/reservist status, and a proxy measure for fitness.

⁽⁴⁾4. Mortality rate ratios differ marginally from the crude deaths ratio owing to some small differences between the Gulf and Era cohorts.

⁽⁵⁾5. These figures include four deaths from Motor Neurone Disease amongst the Gulf cohort and three in the Era group.

⁽⁶⁾6. Includes cases with insufficient information on the death certificate to provide a known cause of death.

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Table 2Deaths due to neoplasms among UK veterans: 1 April to 30 June 2003

ICD 9	Site	Gulf	Era
140–239	All neoplasms	105	124
140–149	Malignant neoplasm of lip, oralcavity and pharynx	6	4
150–159	Malignant neoplasm of digestiveorgans and peritoncum	22	30
160–165	Malignant neoplasm of respiratoryand intrathoracic organs	17	25
170–175	Malignant neoplasm of bone, connective tissue, skin and breast	14	13
179–189	Malignant neoplasm of genitourinary organs	3	7
190–199	Malignant neoplasm of other and unspecified site	21	29
200–208	Malignant neoplasm of lymphatic and haematopoietic tissue	19	14
239	Unspecified nature	3	2

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TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Baghdad Visit (9 July 2003)

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Minister for Women and Equality (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I visited Baghdad on Wednesday 9 July 2003.

The purpose of the visit was to support Iraqi women to become properly involved in the political process and to ensure that British business expertise does not get overlooked in the reconstruction work in Iraq.

I addressed the plenary session of the "Voice of Women of Iraq" conference. This was an important event, organised, run and managed by Iraqi women but with the backing and support of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), especially a secondee to the CPA from my Department's Women and Equality Unit. In addition to speaking at the plenary session, I participated in one of the workshops looking at constitutional and democracy issues, had lunch with the attendees and private discussions with the steering group who had led the conference.

Paula Dobriansky, the Under Secretary for Global Affairs at the US State Department also addressed the conference.

The turnout was impressive in numbers, quality and diversity of participants. This was, of course, only the start of the process of ensuring that women are fully engaged in the reconstruction of Iraq and the political process.

In the afternoon I met with Ambassador Paul Bremer, administrator of the CPA, and pressed him to ensure substantial women's representation on the Governing Council. In the event, only 3 women have actually been appointed to the Council which will be a disappointment to the in-country and exiled Iraq women who had expected and asked for a stronger voice. The UK Government will continue to press for substantial women's representation in future political structures. It will also be important to ensure that those women who are appointed continue to be given support so that they are not marginalised in the political process.

For part of my visit I was joined by a business scoping mission from British Trade International's Iraq Industry Working Group. Together we visited the CPA's Business Support and Facilitation Centre (the brainchild of a UK secondee) and had discussions with senior officials of the Ministries of Industry and Trade about trade and investment promotion and economic reform. We will be following up that visit with offers of

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further practical support. The Iraqi senior officials were also keen to make use of UK experience and expertise in economic reform and privatisation.

The scoping mission joined me for discussions with US members of the CPA economics team where I was able to press for the interim budget to be finalised. I also discussed the handling of vested/seized assets and the procurement process, and reiterated the need for there to be a level playing field on the role of the private sector in reconstruction. I also used the visit to highlight the value and quality that the UK private sector can bring to Iraq's reconstruction.

In my meeting with Ambassador Bremer, I also discussed the ways in which UK companies might contribute to the reconstruction work in Iraq.

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