LGBT Veterans Independent Review

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

None of us has a monopoly on this. We are learning from the Canadian experience, and I expect others will learn from us. Across the board, this country is looked up to as a purveyor of norms and values of the highest order. When, for example, we train people from among our allies in how to conduct themselves, as is happening right now, those norms and values are inculcated, including this material.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

In the late ’80s, I was very close to someone who suffered considerably as a result of this ban when she was thrown out of the Army for being a lesbian. She had her distinguished and lengthy period of military service cut short, she was humiliated in the process, and, initially, she found it hard to find employment commensurate with her skills and worth as a human being. All that happened to her just because she was a woman who loved other women. It was a ban based on sexual orientation—nothing more, nothing less. Her loss, and that of others, includes pain and suffering, loss of earnings, loss of employability and loss of pension rights. Any compensation scheme should seek to put them back in the position that they would have been in were it not for that homophobic ban. Can the Minister confirm that all those heads of damages—pain and suffering, loss of earnings, loss of employability and loss of pension rights—will be taken into account in the compensation scheme?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. and learned Lady will be aware that, in the early 2000s, the MOD was taken to court by a significant number of people who had been maligned in the way she has described. The MOD was found wanting and awards were made at that time. I cannot give her the assurances that she seeks because the financial awards scheme—it is a financial awards scheme, not a compensation scheme—is still being worked through, but I hope that we will be able to come back to the House soon to describe at least the bare bones of what we have in mind.