LGBT Veterans: Etherton Review

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

I welcome Lord Etherton’s review and thank all the organisations and campaign groups that contributed to it, including Fighting With Pride. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) rightly said, this is welcome, but it is so late. I also place on the record my thanks to my constituents in Suffolk Coastal who raised the issue with me directly and have worked for years to support their former military colleagues who have suffered at the hands of this abhorrent and humiliating practice. In particular, I thank Kalvyn Friend, who contributed to the review and has engaged with me directly on the issue. He and his colleagues Terry Skitmore and Simon Wallington were perceived as gay in the ’90s and late-’80s and were treated appallingly as a result.

It is important that we acknowledge that there are many former armed service personnel who did not live to see this justice come about. Either they died natural deaths after the ban was removed or, devastatingly, they took their own lives. Many of those who are still living have attempted to die by suicide or have thought to do so. I have heard appalling stories from campaign groups and charities.

The Etherton review has exposed harrowing stories of members of the armed forces and how they were treated by the very institution they were prepared to give their life for. I also thank the Royal British Legion, which among other charities and campaign groups provided evidence to the review and has highlighted stories from former veterans—men and women—who faced at best humiliation and at worst degrading and appalling acts of intimidation, as well as needless discharge from the armed forces. In some cases, they faced imprisonment and no access to their military pensions, as we have heard.

I reiterate that the cultural and operational justifications for the ban, as described and endorsed by the Ministry of Defence at the time, have rightly been criticised in Lord Etherton’s report as an

“incomprehensible policy of homophobic bigotry”.

It is crucial that we learn from those past mistakes and that the principles of equality and respect that underpin our society are taken forward.

In 2002, I attended Welbeck military college. After I left, I joined the Territorial Army, serving in the Royal Logistics Corps. This was just a few short years after the ban was lifted, but the shadow of the policy was still evident. Serving personnel were terrified of being found out, still living their lives in the shadows. At college, I had teachers and physical training instructors who had lived with and lived through the ban, having been personally affected by the homophobic policies or having seen at first hand how friends and serving colleagues had been bullied out of the Army and lived their lives in the shadows. Unsurprisingly, many have suffered from mental health problems brought on by living and working in an institution that had previously tried to hunt them out for being gay or bisexual.

Even though the ban was lifted by the time I left Welbeck college and the TA, I saw how the culture lingered for LGBT colleagues. We have heard today that although the ban was lifted in 2000, the culture and the practice were still evident among serving personnel. When I was there, colleagues still felt that they had to hide their sexual orientation and that it was still something to be ashamed of. They were not proud or open in the way that we are today and that we take for granted in society now.

The impact of this abhorrent practice cannot be overstated. The lifelong scar it has had on so many who gave so much to our nation is a stain on our military history and more widely on our society. The review rightly recommends that compensation would be an appropriate means of redress. I am delighted that we have increased the compensation from £50 million to £75 million. If that had been left unchanged, it might have equalled as little as £12,500 per claimant. I urge the Government to make sure that the payments are made quickly and without delay. It is important that we do what we can to make sure that the compensation is released quickly to those who deserve it.

I welcome this announcement, and once again I thank all those who contributed to the review and who took it forward. The work being done to implement the recommendations will go some way to recognising the past failures of the Ministry of Defence.