Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
WEDNESDAY 18 DECEMBER 2002
DR LEWIS
MOONIE, MP, MS
LIZ MCLOUGHLIN,
CBE, AND MR
ALAN BURNHAM
Mr Jones
120. If you get mesothelioma you die within
18 months.
(Ms McLoughlin) Sorry, I didn't hear the interjection.
Chairman
121. It is all right, carry on, Ms McLoughlin.
(Ms McLoughlin) I said earlier that the distinction
was something that was a matter of policy, not law, and here we
have a matter of law and what the Crown Proceedings Act and the
repeal of Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act does. That is
being tested at the moment and we will see. That has no bearing
at all on people's ability to claim for war pensions when ill
health is attributable to their service.
Mr Hancock
122. Except the war pension is not very good,
is it, if you have got something that is going to kill you very
quickly?
(Ms McLoughlin) It is not a substitute.
123. No, it is not. I would like to know how
do war pensions awarded to those service personnel who have been
successful in getting them compare with what a civilian employee
would have been able to get by suing the Government? I would suggest
considerably less.
(Dr Moonie) You cannot really equate any standardised
pension scheme with the effects of a legal action, which are variable
for a start. In terms of the actual compensation which is paid
at present to people in similar circumstances, they are broadly
comparable.
124. I would then suggest to you the case of
a 44 year old warrant officer in the navy who died two years ago
in my constituency, having been a PTI, a field gunner on three
occasions, an instructor on two, and the best he could get for
his wife in the few months he had between being diagnosed and
dying was that he would get some sort of war pension. Bear in
mind that he was 44 years old and he had been a boy sailor and
he could prove at the time when he was infected by asbestos. He
had only ever worked in the Royal Navy, he had no other employment.
He had been involved in the de-lagging of asbestos of a ship in
a dockyard whilst he was on barracks duty. He spent three months
de-lagging a ship. He knew chapter and verse what happened and
how he got it. The difference between what his family will receive
through the war pension and what he could have got if he had been
a civilian employee ran into many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
How can it be right for us to recognise that and say to people
"you can have a war pension"? There has got to be some
judgment made by Government that this is manifestly unfair.
(Ms McLoughlin) All I can say is the judgment was
made by Government during the passing of the original legislation
and in 1987. That is just where we are.
125. Can I ask you then, Minister, if you would
be prepared to see your Department now review that with a view
to making a change in that legislation for people like this young
family, a young mother with two young children of 12 and 14 who
could have expected, and should have expected, 30 more years probably
of their father being around? I cannot understand why you cannot
see that it is time to review that situation. Would you accept
that the Government owes it to these people?
(Dr Moonie) I am afraid that the law is as it stands.
It is not a matter for the Ministry of Defence to change it, it
is a matter for the Government as a whole and there are no plans
to do so.
Mr Hancock: I am very disappointed and so will
a lot of people out there be. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr Jones
126. Can I just press you on this issue because
I think in this case, for example, civil litigation is dated knowledge,
when the knowledge was that you were actually being negligent.
In the asbestos-related industry it goes to the 1940s because
the Ministry of Supply actually supplied the engineers, the Shipbuilding
and Employers' Federation, with a letter thanking them for their
war work and warning them of the dangers of asbestos. I understand
why the Government perhaps would be reluctant to open up this
pre-1987 case but in the case that Mr Hancock has outlined, I
remember dealing with cases when I was the GMB's legal officer
and a case like that of someone who is 44 would have been worth,
he is quite right, conservatively hundreds of thousands, if not
more. There are people who are going to be suffering and actually
dying very painful deaths and not being able to access a pension
for a long period of time because I think the maximum that someone
lives who has mesothelioma is about 18 months, it is a very quick
and very painful death. Are people here not losing out on a hell
of a lot of money in proportion to what you would do if you had
exposure in a shipyard, for example?
(Dr Moonie) I think there may well be cases where
that is true. My personal sympathies, and they are great, have
nothing to do with this case, I am sorry.
Mr Hancock
127. It is a great pity that Parliament, through
the MoD, does not change the law.
(Dr Moonie) The trouble is the hard cases like this
are the ones which we likely use to illustrate it but you could
not just apply the law, or any change in it, to affect these because
many, many more would be affected as well.
Mr Jones: The difference here is that if the
MoD was a private company these individuals would be able to sue
because the date of knowledge, I think you said, was the 1940s.
Mr Hancock: Or if they had been merchant seamen.
Chairman: Thank you. I sense from the brevity
of your answer, Dr Moonie, that you are not totally opposed to
what is being said but as we do not have gestures recorded no-one
will know. The last issue we want to deal with this morning is
one again that has involved the Defence Committee over a long,
long period and we have had not the slightest impact upon the
Ministry of Defence policy and that is why I have given the question
to my colleague, Jim Knight.
Jim Knight
128. Thank you very much. I will just read this
summary so it is clear to everyone what we are talking about.
"The UK conducted 21 atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950s.
Some 28,000 UK service personnel were involved in the test programmes,
most in logistic support", such as a constituent of mine
who has contacted me, Richard Wallace, who is 67. He was serving
in 1956 in Maralinga on Canberra aircraft that were monitoring
atomic clouds and in some cases collecting samples. He serviced
those aircraft, refuelled them and so on and claims very limited
protection was given to him at the time. "Service personnel
from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji were also involved. A number
of veterans of the test programme have claimed that their health
was damaged by deliberate or accidental exposure to ionising radiation.
However, the Ministry of Defence has consistently rejected these
claims, on the basis that stringent safety precautions were in
place at all times." You have commissioned a series of studies
into this by the National Radiological Protection Board and staff
from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, first in the 1980s which
looked at over 100,000 records and traced the service records
of 22,000 participants and a control group. "The results
of that study were published in 1988 and a follow-up study was
conducted in 1993. Both studies concluded that participation in
the test programme had no discernible effect on the participants'
life expectancy or on the risk of developing cancer or other fatal
diseases." That is the background. I have followed this fairly
closely in recent weeks since my constituent contacted me and
I have read the Hansard on the Westminster Hall one and a half
hour debate that occurred a couple of weeks ago and looked at
the correspondence you have had, Minister, with Mark Todd. You
say in the letter that you wrote to Mr Todd on 2 December this
year that "the designs of the studies have some limitations".
Could you just tell me what limitations they are?
(Dr Moonie) The design of which studies?
129. The 1988 and 1993 studies.
(Dr Moonie) Not offhand, no. I would need to look
at the work in detail.
130. You go on to say that they are considered
generally reliable.
(Dr Moonie) They are generally reliable but like all
studies a great deal of work had to be done in collating records
and things. There were many inaccuracies, people left out who
should have been there and others who were put in there who should
not. I would have said the limitations are largely due to the
fact that again as an epidemiologist you are looking at it retrospectively
when what you ought to be doing of course when looking at these
populations is prospectively, but that is a bit nit-picking. I
do not know of any specific methodology problems with these studies.
I would have to go back and check my reply and see why that particular
sentence is there.
131. You have now commissioned a third study.
Why have you done that when the previous two studies you say are
considered generally reliable?
(Dr Moonie) I think it is appropriate to follow up
research. We are talking about a period now that is about ten
years on from the last one. We want to look at specific areas,
the development of cancers for example. I think it is appropriate
for us to carry on. In view of the concerns which have been expressed,
despite my vehemence in insisting that there are no grounds to
them, the only way I can show that is the case is by conducting
some good research and offsetting some of the less good research
that is conducted by others.
132. Will this third study look at some of the
higher risk types? There has been some criticism reading through
the debates and so on that by going for such a broad sample of
22,000 you are averaging out some of the particular peaks in the
results in relation to those that were under particular risk as
part of the test.
(Dr Moonie) I think it will be interesting. The study
of course has already been completed and is due to report, so
I cannot change it now. This point was made to me, and it is one
which I will discuss with my medical people, as to whether we
can select out the higher risk group and whether we can tell from
the records the group that were known to have had it. I have to
say there is very little overlap between them and those claiming
to be damaged by radiation.
133. If you were able to do that, that would
be helpful.
(Dr Moonie) It would be interesting to do that. I
am not sure how much detail we have of those who had higher doses
and there are relatively few of them.
134. Sure. There has been comment upon the New
Zealand government's decision to fund an independent study commissioned
by the veterans themselves. Is that something that you have considered,
I am sure you have, and if you have rejected it, why have you
rejected it?
(Dr Moonie) Because I did not consider the research
to be of sufficient quality to justify funding it. I will look
at any proposal to fund proper peer reviewed research. I will
not fund anything that is not. Can I finish that. I will also
not fund research which duplicates the independent research which
we already commissioned through the NRPB and the Imperial Cancer
Research Fund which I consider to be of exemplary quality.
135. When the third study reports and the veterans
have had a chance to properly examine that, if they were to come
forward to you with a research proposal which potentially would
add new information to what you have already studied and is of
a sufficient quality, as far as you are concerned, then you would
be happy to look at funding?
(Dr Moonie) I would certainly look at it and give
it consideration, yes.
136. Beyond the studies, the veterans have also
asked for some other recognition of their service and the particular
risks, given that what we know now is different to what we knew
then. You talked about that in relation to asbestos. They have
talked about the possibility of an apology. I do not know whether
that could be in a form of those that may —
(Dr Moonie) For what?
137. For those that may have suffered.
(Dr Moonie) Let's just stop, can I stop you a minute.
Let me make it very clear. I have looked in great detail at what
went on. There have been two books published by an independent
historian, Lorna Arnold, looking at the history of British tests
which looked at all the records that we had. I have looked at
the individual records of the Grapple tests, there was no deliberate
attempt to expose people to radiation other than in a few volunteers
the so-called Dr May's group of volunteers, to do the work which
we did. Nobody among our personnel was deliberately or carelessly
exposed to radiation through some systematic failure in the system,
nobody, there is no evidence to the contrary.
138. So you would rule out any kind of qualified
apology, no apology—?
(Dr Moonie) Absolutely not. I am sorry, absolutely,
I am sure you changed the sense of that sentence at the end there.
139. And would you similarly rule out any kind
of medal for veterans for nuclear testing?
(Dr Moonie) Medals? Do you know the trouble I have
over medals? Sorry, I must not be facetious. The people who are
involved in this do believe that they are affected by radiation.
I do what I can to convince them otherwise. I do the research.
You are well aware of the policy with regard to medals. It is
not customary and it is not only the military because many civilian
people were involved as well. If people feel strongly enough about
it they can try to get some sort of memorial for their group but
it is not something the government gets involved in, we do not
get involved with any memorial. On the medals side there have
been a few scars over the past few years from attempts to get
medals.
Mr Knight: Looking through the list of Early
Day Motions there is a constant catalogue of claims for medals.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Perhaps you might
drop us a note on the subject of retrospection because I am sure
there might be one or two things you were not able to say and
it would be helpful. Thank you all. Ms McLoughlin, I forgot to
say you should have had a medal many years ago for your role in
parliamentary liaison but, as the Minister says, not all tribulations
or injuries or disasters are always recognised by medals. Thank
you all very much.
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