Military Helicopters: Blood Cancers

Debate between Jayne Kirkham and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered military helicopters and blood cancers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I am here because of someone who joined the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm at the age of 19 because he had always wanted to fly. He always had the vitality to attack life and live it fully. He flew everything from Hawks to helicopters, and was a talented and committed pilot. By the time I met him, he was teaching new recruits to fly at RAF Cranwell, and was Navy snowboarding champion. In 2005, he went to Cornwall and was stationed at Culdrose, where he flew search and rescue on the old Sea Kings. I represent Truro and Falmouth. Cornwall is rich in forces personnel and veterans. Five and a half per cent of people in Truro and Falmouth have served, which is a much higher percentage than the national average of 3.8%. In Truro and Falmouth, 4,160 houses—more than 10%—have at least one veteran living in them.

He was living in Dorset when he suffered strange symptoms of blood clots in his lungs and legs in the spring of 2022. It took some time and persistence, but he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer that affects only 5,000 people a year in the UK and is most common in men over the age of 85. He was lucky to have some pioneering treatment in Dorset and later at the Royal Marsden hospital, and he was able to trial drugs that were not yet available in the UK. Treatment is developing for blood cancers all the time, and it is important that people in the UK have access to new treatments. The cancer, however, returned, and he died a year after diagnosis, not long after his 54th birthday. His was not an isolated case. Last Tuesday, in the Welsh Senedd, Julie Morgan led a debate very like this one about RAF winchman Zach Stubbings. Zach died from multiple myeloma at the age of 46, after working many hours on Sea Kings.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent, sterling efforts to advocate on behalf of serving personnel and veterans, seeking answers on the important matter of military helicopters and blood cancers. Does she agree that although the current in-house testing of in-service helicopters is welcome, we must ensure full transparency on the matter so that there is work done for those who have previously worked on those helicopters? The health and wellbeing of our serving personnel must always be front and centre.

[Jayne Kirkham]

I agree absolutely. The health of our serving personnel is and always must be paramount. I will move on to previous cases shortly.

I know of 180 cases with solicitors of crew working on military helicopters who have contracted cancers, many like those of the two people I mentioned. They worked on the Sea King particularly, but also the Westland Wessex, the Puma, and the CH-47 Chinook. Many of the crew affected were in touch with each other, as there seemed too many of them, and the cancers too rare, to be pure coincidence.

Last July, a report was written by the Independent Medical Expert Group on medical and scientific aspects of the armed forces compensation scheme, and was published in November last year. There was a section at the end on the potential link between exhaust fumes such as benzene from helicopters and blood cancers such as multiple myeloma. The findings were that the evidence and data available did not meet their threshold to establish a causal link between Sea King helicopter exhaust fumes or benzene and multiple myeloma, leiomyosarcoma, and soft tissue sarcomas.