Nuclear Test Veterans: Medical Records

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) not only for her sterling work in securing and opening this debate, but for her continued campaigning for justice for all our nuclear veterans.

For decades, our nuclear veterans, their families, campaign groups, journalists and MPs have relentlessly pursued truth and justice for those brave servicemen who bore close witness to the most devastating weapon this country ever produced. Those men were part of an experiment that secured our safety but devastated them and their families. The Minister is well aware of the countless testimonies from those willing to speak about the harm that radiation exposure has caused to them.

Cancer, heart, skeletal, dental and skin problems, difficulties conceiving, depression, personality changes, chronic headaches, mental ill health, rare genetic conditions and birth defects passed down through generations were all prevalent after taking part in those tests. That is the enduring, painful legacy of the tests those men were subjected to. Many of them still feel responsible for that pain, but they are not responsible; the Ministry of Defence is. It is the MOD that sent them to the blasts without any understanding of the protection they needed. Men stood in their shorts and vests, and were simply asked to turn their back on nuclear blasts that contaminated the land around them and instantly killed all wildlife there.

Litigation, petitions, information requests and pleas have all been sidelined by Governments who have stated that they cannot prove that those men were irradiated, and that the scientific evidence needed to prove the link between their and their families’ unexplained ill health simply does not exist. Who on earth would seriously keep up the denial that nuclear blasts do not have a negative impact on the human body? The veterans rightly suspect some kind of cover-up. Susie Boniface at the Daily Mirror, in her long campaign for the truth, has repeatedly uncovered evidence that would indicate such a cover-up—most recently, evidence that the National Radiological Protection Board report had been tampered with by officials, and past UK-Government commissioned research that contradicted the conclusions of international scientific research.

My constituent and dear friend Jack Taylor was involved in Operation Antler near Maralinga. He has files full of documents and pictures from his time there and also, sadly, mountains of dismissive letters from various Secretaries of State and Ministers. For him, like many of the nuclear veterans, it is not just about compensation; it is about recognition, truth and justice. It breaks my heart that my dear friend and others who did their duty to our country—as Jack says, a duty that has kept the world safe for decades—should be treated in such a despicable way. There is nothing worse than knowing you are telling the truth and those in authority keep telling you that you are wrong. It remains a stain on this country.

The common theme through the decades that veterans and their families have been fighting for justice is inconsistency from Government on whether the servicemen had blood and urine tests prior to and after the nuclear tests. If they did, where were the records kept and how can they be accessed?

A recent freedom of information request has shown that such records do exist, but, as usual, full details will not be released because the AWE says that it is too expensive. That is why the veterans, exhausted but not defeated, are exploring fresh legal action, but they should not have to. The veterans and their families know that full access to their medical records will show they were exposed to radiation that caused them ill health. They are therefore owed compensation.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will agree that the question is one of openness and transparency from the Ministry of Defence. Those brave servicemen, including my constituent Dennis Brooks, served this country and contributed to the safety of this nation over many decades, and they deserve answers. Many of the families and brave servicemen are now advanced in years. It would be lovely if, before they pass away, they received the answers that they and their families and children have waited so long for. The Government surely have an obligation to deliver that for the families.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention—I could not agree more. Given the anger and frustration that the families and the veterans who are still with us today feel, the Government’s answer that it will cost too much is an insult to the veterans and their families and everything that they have been through.

The UK remains the only nuclear power to deny compensation to its bomb test veterans. Does the Minister seriously think that the US, Canada, France, Fiji and Australia are all wrong to give their nuclear veterans compensation? Why must our nuclear veterans here have to continually fight every single step of the way? We often hear that the Government’s ambition is for us to be the best place in the world to be a veteran, but it is clear that that ambition does not extend to our nuclear veterans.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Defence People and Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) for bringing this debate and for her tireless championing of the cause of nuclear test veterans. We all have nuclear test veterans in our constituencies. Many of us served with them during the initial parts of our service life; and some of us have nuclear test veterans in our own families.

We will certainly never forget the tens of thousands of service personnel scientists and civilians from the UK and her allies who participated in the British nuclear testing programme between 1952 and 1967. The test programme over 15 years represented the largest tri-service event since the D-Day landings. By equipping the UK with an appropriate nuclear capacity they helped to keep the Cold War in the fridge, preventing a third, potentially devasting, conventional war. With the threat from nuclear armed states escalating, their contribution continues to keep us safe today.

We have had some powerful contributions from Back Bench Members today. In addition to the contribution from the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who speaks for the Opposition, we have heard from the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and the hon. Members for Islwyn (Chris Evans) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). I will try to respond to the points they have made in the time available, but if I am unable to do so I will certainly write to them.

When it comes to health effects, we should remember at all times that the UK atmospheric nuclear test programme experimented on weapons; it did not experiment on service personnel. Tests were carried out to contemporary radiological standards, as shown by the documented safety measures and monitoring that took place at the time.

Over the past six decades there have been four big independently conducted and analysed longitudinal cohort studies of the population at risk. The results have consistently demonstrated that cancer and mortality rates for the nuclear test veterans are similar to those serving contemporaneously in the armed forces who did not participate in the testing programmes. It is important to emphasise that those are big epidemiological studies. The results show that the cancer and mortality rates are in fact lower than for the general population. I am not going to pray that in aid, as we would expect that to be the case, given what is called the healthy worker effect, but it should give some reassurance to those who served. In corroboration, a study of mortality among US military participants in eight above-ground nuclear test series events between 1945 and 1962 was published last year. The study population was 114,270 individuals over 65 years. No health effect from participation in the tests was evidenced. In July last year, Brunel University published the results of its study into the number of chromosomal abnormalities in nuclear test veterans and their children compared with a control veteran group. It found no significant differences.

Those studies are important because, perfectly understandably, veterans may ascribe illness or abnormality to dramatic past experiences, such as witnessing a nuclear mushroom cloud, but the highly compelling evidence we have from both this country and abroad strongly suggests that they should be reassured in respect of their participation in nuclear tests between 1952 and 1967. Based on the peer-reviewed evidence, furthermore I think that we should all be responsible and measured in the language we use, even as we rightly advocate for our constituents and call for transparency, on which more anon.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

On the point the Minister made about the United States tests, President Biden said in July this year:

“I have signed laws that support veterans who developed cancer and other medical conditions stemming from our World War II nuclear program.”

What science is he relying on that we are not relying on?

[Dr Murrison]

I am relying on the evidence that was published last year—the study of 114,000-plus veterans who have been followed up over 65 years. I cannot account for the remarks of the President of the United States. What I can do is rely rigorously on the scientific peer-reviewed evidence. Today we have heard a number of harrowing accounts from constituents, and I have my own, but at the end of the day the hon. Lady will appreciate that policy has to be based on a rigorous examination of the evidence. I believe that is what has been done in this country and, I suspect, by predecessor Governments of all political persuasions. That is the only basis on which we can proceed. May I tell the hon. Lady, who spoke powerfully, that we need to be careful about unduly alarming people who have served the country in the way we have been describing. That is not in any way to say that their concerns should be downplayed or, indeed, that we should not be transparent in the evidence we produce. I will come on to cover some of that.

I have to say that the narrative that someone is hiding files, presumably under consecutive Governments, is curious. To answer the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles, I am not aware that medical records or test results have been withheld for national security reasons. I have asked again, and it has been confirmed, that the Atomic Weapons Establishment does not hold medical records for any former service personnel. It does, however, hold historical technical and scientific documentation about the UK’s nuclear testing programme in its archives. This was published as recently as September through a freedom of information request, as has been mentioned in today’s debate.

In response to the request for any documents containing the words “blood” or “urine”, the AWE returned a report containing the subject headings of 150 items. Those were reviewed and it was found that three particular documents referencing blood and urine tests were of interest. One referred to an anonymous blood test, another contained four anonymous urine tests and the last identified one individual’s blood tests. Following a request, that information was provided to the individual’s next of kin. I have looked at the subject headings and asked officials to look again at the 150 files with a view to placing those not already available to the public in the public domain. I have also asked to see them myself.

I hope that helps the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. I share the House’s desire to make transparent that which can be made transparent. I hope this will put the matter beyond any possible doubt. To answer the hon. Member for Strangford directly, recently my right hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs said categorically:

“There is no cover up”.—[Official Report, 21 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 220.]

Indeed, I cannot see why there would be.

No personal health records are withheld from living veterans. Any medical records taken either before, during or after participation in the UK nuclear weapon tests that are held in the individual military medical records in the Government archives can be accessed on request by submitting a data subject access request. I must say, however, that any records that were made would be up to 71 years old. They would be paper, poorer-quality and perishable—not at all the auditable, searchable medical and technical records that we are used to today. Absent or incomplete records should not be taken as evidence of some sort of conspiracy.

We know that when a group of nuclear test veterans initiated a claim against the then Government in the early 2000s, the then Government denied that exposure took place and said that there were no health consequences as a result of being present at nuclear test sites. I cannot answer for the then Government but evidence since strongly supports the claim that there have been no health consequences.