Veterans Update

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, having yesterday expressed the hope that the House would be given an opportunity to comment on the Secretary of State for Defence’s Statement yesterday, perhaps I may now express gratitude that such an opportunity has been provided at such an early point, even though it prevents me speaking in the debate in the Grand Committee as I had intended.

The report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, is a truly remarkable document of some 270 pages which reveals suffering on a truly appalling scale, as we all agree across the House. I want to raise a few points about the Government’s response to it.

First, will it not be vital for carefully co-ordinated work to be done across government departments to ensure that action in response to the 49 recommendations made by the noble and learned Lord is successfully implemented? Has an implementation team been set up to provide direction and momentum for the necessary work?

On pensions, will the Government follow the recommendation that the MoD should invite LGBT veterans to seek clarification as to their entitlement to a service pension where they have not received any pension but believe they were entitled to it?

I also express the hope that the Government will consider very carefully the important recommendations in relation to memorialisation, particularly a public memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum.

Finally, will the Government commit to updating the relevant discharge papers of LGBT people, as recommended, and, if necessary, introduce legislation contained in Annexe 10 of the report to record officially that discharge was unjust and unfair? That would be very much in line with the recent extension of the disregard and pardon schemes to service personnel that I worked over many years with the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and Professor Paul Johnson to achieve.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his presence here today—we are the beneficiaries of that presence, even if the Committee elsewhere is a loser. I thank him too for his clearly expressed wish yesterday that we should have a little more time to discuss this matter. In answering his Question yesterday, I deliberately took fewer questions, because I thought it was important for the Chamber to understand the broader hinterland of how the Government were responding to and proposed to deal with the noble and learned Lord’s report. I am delighted that we have had a broader opportunity to discuss it today.

I can reassure my noble friend that cross-government activity has already been happening in anticipation of the report. He is absolutely correct that cross-government activity will be critical. It will also involve reaching out to devolved Administrations, because they will be involved in implementing some of the recommendations. On the team, certainly within the MoD we have a very well resourced and skilful directorate dealing with these matters. They will be the lead presence in the MoD. Again, because of the widespread awareness of and interest in the report, I reassure my noble friend that we will be communing at top level with other relevant offices—because the Office for Veterans’ Affairs is also involved—to make sure that there is leadership through the summer to supervise this.

On pensions, my noble friend is quite right that there has been doubt and uncertainty as to who is eligible. Advice is now available on the website to which I referred. I hope that will be helpful to potential applicants.

My noble friend raised the issue of the desire for a memorial to be an enduring acknowledgment and testament to those who were so badly treated. My understanding is that the National Memorial Arboretum is administered by independent trustees, so this may be one area where we absolutely understand the spirit of what the recommendations wish to achieve but where the power of delivery may be slightly beyond either the MoD or the Office for Veterans’ Affairs.

On the matter of discharge papers, I too looked at that recommendation and think it a very reasonable one to make. Subject to the administrative challenges of identifying papers and personnel records, the desire would be to absolutely ensure that these papers were amended and issued as they should have been originally.