Veterans Update

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My friend the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is ahead of me; I am delighted to hear that. We have a variety of extremely effective communications media within the MoD, and I am thrilled to hear it has reached them. I think there will be broad awareness within the MoD. I noticed that there was media coverage today, so that will have reached another audience.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

The questions have now finished, so we will move on to the next item. Oh, I am sorry, we shall hear from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton.

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

I thought it would be important to finish the debate by acknowledging what many other noble Lords, including the Minister, have said, which is that, without the live contributions from those veterans who were affected by the ban and suffered under it, and who sent statements to us, the report would have been a mere shadow. I ask that the whole House acknowledges the extraordinary courage that compelled some of these people, for the very first time in their lives, to reveal things of the greatest intimacy that they would never have revealed to anyone else. At the end of the day, that courage is really what the report is about, and it leads us, as so many here have said, to implement as much as we can in order to meet the injustice that these people have suffered.