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Mr. Colin Breed (South-East Cornwall) (LD): It is a privilege and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire). May I, through her, thank the Select Committee on Defence for its extremely valuable work? It has benefited all hon. Members in their contributions to defence debates.
I wish to express again my admiration and gratitude for the service of the armed forces. That has been put on record many times and we need to continue to do that. Against that background, we want wholeheartedly to support any amendments that seek to provide the best compensation scheme that this country can realistically afford.
The Royal British Legion has worked tirelessly. I accept that the Minister has held many meetings and, I suspect, hard negotiations, with its representatives. They provide a valuable service in representing the best interests of our armed forces.
We support the Lords amendment, which returns the safeguard of reasonable doubt that the Government removed in clause 1. They propose to substitute a balance of probabilities test of entitlement for claims, thus shifting the burden away from the Ministry of Defence and on to the claimant. As everybody has recognised, it means that a significant number of deserving members of the armed forces will be deterred from even beginning an attempt to take on and challenge the Ministry of Defence.
Amendment No. 1 would result in a reversion to the status quo. I could not understand the Minister's assertion that the position would be better than it was. If the amendment were accepted, the burden would not be on the claimant to prove that injury, illness or death was due to service but on the Secretary of State to disprove the case.
We have all stressed in such debates that it is inappropriate to compare armed forces personnel with other parts of the civil service and other civil pension schemes. They are clearly different and they need to be addressed in a different way. Armed forces personnel run special risks, which often have uncertain effects on their health. That special status means that we should do the very best that we can.
I want to concentrate on three matters, which perhaps have not been explored in depth. First, let us consider the figure of £200 million or £300 million over a 10-year
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period. In my simple maths, that means approximately £30 million a year on average, although I accept that the figure could increase or decrease. I do not know how it is worked out. I want to contrast that with the announcement in the Ministry of Defence's annual review, which was made last week. It set out the abortive expenditure of £25 million on a project in the River Tamar, adjacent to my constituency.
The project is called RAFT, which stands for remote ammunitioning facility in the Tamar. It was hugely controversial and designed to enable submarines to be rearmed. It was approved against a background of great opposition. After digging hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock and debris out of the river and dumping them in an adjacent bay, causing all sorts of environmental damage, the project was pulled. In the process, £25 million of public money was spent. I do not suggest that that is an everyday event, but £25 million would pay for at least one year of the additional expenditure. Saving abortive expenditure on one such example every year would render the Ministry's increase in spending almost cost neutral.
Secondly, the Minister said that the provisions start on 6 April next year and that current rules will apply until then. Last night, when I was considering today's debate, I heard that my daughter had given birth to our first granddaughter—a very happy event. That made me consider being a grandfather. Many children are being born to members of our armed forces while their fathers are away in Iraq. In future, the sons and daughters of those now serving in the middle east and, indeed, my granddaughter, might ask, "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" or "Granddad."
What might I reply? Perhaps I would say, "I participated in a Parliament that sent many of our armed forces to war." Perhaps we will have greater perspective when we consider the matter with hindsight in 10 or 12 years. I could say, "I also participated in a Parliament that ensured that the sort of compensation and pension schemes that those members of the armed forces may want to rely on was significantly weaker and much reduced from what they might have expected to get it they received injuries or illnesses through the conflict to which Parliament decided to send them." I would have to say that I sat on the green Benches while that happened.
Exactly what I might say, I have not the foggiest idea, but that is not important. What is important is that questions will be asked. Why did Parliament decide, within the same Parliament, not only to send people into situations of great potential harm but to introduce a compensation scheme which would not provide them with the very best support? The cost of that could well fall on those families rather than on the Government and the country. So, yes, this is about the future. We are looking towards the future and trying to provide the very best for it.
Thirdly, I want to turn to something that I shall call track record. Why is it that so many people in our armed forces, the Royal British Legion and elsewhere do not believe that the MOD is seeking the very best for them? Why do people think that the Ministry is not doing its level best to provide a scheme that will give them all that this country can properly afford and should rightly
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provide? Perhaps the answer can be found in an ongoing issue. I want to quote extensively from a letter from one of my constituents, Mr. John Connelly. I am sure that, as I read it, hon. Members will understand where he is coming from.
First, I shall provide a bit of context. Mr. Connelly used to work at Devonport. He was in the Royal Navy, and he worked alongside dockyard workers. He worked on ships, hauling out vast quantities of asbestos lagging and he now has an illness that is likely to cause his premature death. He says:
"Asbestos-related illnesses have killed and injured many thousands of Royal Navy veterans over the decades, and still continue to do so. The problem for Royal Navy veterans will not pass until approximately 2025, when the MOD can safely say that due to safer use of insulating materials used on warships and submarines today, and the reduced number of Royal Navy personnel and the huge reduction in the size of the Royal Navy fleet, no more sailors should be killed or made sick by asbestos. This is all very nice for those who are serving today, but our plea is on behalf of those who served Queen and country when no precautions were offered to protect us from the harmful asbestos dust and fibres which were used in massive and unregulated amounts on warships and submarines."
"on behalf of the sailors and their families who have 'crossed the bar' or are still suffering today with this dreadful disease caused by the Royal Navy's use of asbestos."
Mr. Connelly continues by saying that the MOD's stance relates to
"the 1947 Crown Proceedings Act, section 10, which the Government changed in May 1987 but did not make retrospective. This has seriously disadvantaged Royal Navy veterans with asbestos diseases because the bulk of us served and left the Royal Navy prior to 1987. This gives the MOD total legal immunity, which they are very happy to exert in any challenge to this Act. This unfair and unjust law puts the Royal Navy veterans with asbestos-related illnesses, and many of their families, below the law which allows dockyard workers, coal miners and civilian workers with asbestos illnesses to claim proper and just recognition and compensation for their illnesses through the courts. It is simply obscene to give compensation for a dockyard worker's life or a coal miner's life to their families, when 'Jolly Jack Tar' is treated less than these. It was good enough to change this law in 1987. Why is it not good enough to change the law and make it retrospective? This would allow a degree of fairness for sufferers and their families.
The MOD will hide behind the war pension theory that, if ill, we can claim a war pension. The payments, if you are successful, from the Veterans Agency, are small in comparison to MOD payouts to dockyard workers and Government payouts to coal miners, etc. If large payments are good enough for these good men, then they are good enough for us. The playing field is not level, and the Royal Navy veterans with asbestos-related illnesses have an uphill struggle for recognition and fairness. It should be the other way round for those who have given their all and are now dying with asbestos diseases."
2.15 pm
I could go on, but I think that hon. Members will have got an idea of what I am trying to say. There are many who are extremely sceptical about the real motives for the MOD's changes to the pension and compensation schemes. I recognise that the Minister is going to say that we need to make a decision on this, but this decision will pass into legislation that will affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for many years to come.
There is no track record of any decisions to overturn arrangements that go against the MOD's long-term interests. There is huge scepticism among people who
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have heard what has been done about Gulf war syndrome, about asbestos and about the other illnesses that can be contracted while people are serving; they feel that those issues have not been properly dealt with. We must provide a real Rolls Royce of a compensation scheme. It is sometimes preferable for a few people to exploit a scheme in a minor way in order to ensure that the vast majority of those who are properly owed compensation receive it. If we err in the other direction, by excluding 100 per cent. of those who might be trying to exploit the system, we will undoubtedly significantly reduce the number who should rightly and properly be rewarded.
It seems unlikely that the Government will accept any compromise on this issue, in the light of their threat to pull the whole Bill. There are good things in the Bill, which the Liberal Democrats welcome. However, there are one or two issues on which we disagree. I am sure that figures can be provided in relation to cost neutrality, and that all sorts of good reasons can be given, but the Government now have the opportunity not only to provide a proper compensation scheme for those who are serving Queen and country, but to demonstrate once and for all that the issues that Mr. Connelly raised in his letter have been consigned to the past and are not part of the MOD's current plans, and that, although mistakes may have been made in the past, they will not be repeated in future. In that way, other hon. Members would not have to receive similar letters in 10 or 15 years' time, citing these pension and compensation schemes as the reason why people are not receiving what they should be.
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