Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

Of course. Clearly, I am not a Minister in the Ministry of Defence, but I raised this formally with the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families earlier this week. I am aware of that case. I totally accept that there are individual cases where the results are not in keeping with making this country the best in the world to be a veteran. That is why I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that case. There is a deficit when it comes to looking after our foreign and Commonwealth personnel, particularly veterans, in this country. He has done great work on this over many years in highlighting their cases, and I hope the sunlight we can bring to this case can bring us to a fair resolution.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

After my office intervened on behalf of Sandy, who had been wounded serving in Northern Ireland, by writing to the Secretary of State, we got an inaccurate response that has left Sandy feeling even more frustrated about his treatment and his attempts to get a fairer war pension. Given that the survey by the all-party group on veterans found that 76% of veterans rated their experience of claiming compensation through Veterans UK as poor or very poor, when will there be root-and-branch reform of Veterans UK? Will the Minister promise to take up Sandy’s case and review what has been sent to our office?

[Johnny Mercer]

I am more than happy for the hon. Gentleman to send me his case. My line on Veterans UK has been the same for four years now. There are good people who work there and they work very hard in delivering that service. Governments of all colours have under-invested in that organisation for many years. When I first became a Minister, they were working on paper records. Jointly with the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families, I have commissioned a review of that service to make sure that it works for people like the individual who has been mentioned. I am clear that the service is not good enough in some areas. We are working on that and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see the results of the review, which we launched last week, in the next three to six months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Lady has campaigned vigorously on this on behalf of her constituents. I am aware of her absolute focus on this matter of major concern. There is work ongoing; I think we will be helped a great deal by Brian Langstaff’s second interim report, which I believe will address compensation. That will help us get that underpinning. It is an incredibly complex issue, as I am discovering, but I can assure the hon. Lady that work is being conducted in Government to make certain we are ready for the second interim report, and then the final one.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

In 2016, Hinkley Point C was estimated to cost £18 billion. The latest update is that it is going to cost £33 billion. The UK Government want to replicate Hinkley Point C at Sizewell C; why, then, are they still estimating the cost of Sizewell C at £18 billion? When are they going to come clean about the real cost of Sizewell C?

[Jeremy Quin]

Some of the precision of that would be better answered by my colleagues in the relevant Department, but what I will say to reassure the hon. Gentleman is that the Infrastructure and Projects Authority learns with every single project that we do. I have discussed this with the IPA, and there will be a huge amount of learning from the planning that has already gone on as to how we can make certain that future projects learn from experience and are more cost-effective. That was the case with how we have built schools: right across the Government service, we are finding ways of learning and applying that more regularly.