Gulf War Illnesses

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester for raising this issue. One cannot but admire his tenacity, and of course one admires the work he has done with the Royal British Legion over the years in looking after veterans, particularly Gulf War veterans. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, on his position on the Front Bench, which I sat on myself, and I look forward to his answers to the many detailed points.

I shall make my position very clear. I have listened tonight to the arguments from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and I have read the very interesting briefing provided by the Royal British Legion. This is not the first time I have been involved in this debate. I think I have been involved in it about five times, and on every occasion I have scrupulously and with enormous effort gone through the paperwork and the reports on what has happened. I have to say to noble Lords that I see no reason to change the position that I represented when in government.

The former Government recognised that they made mistakes. They made errors of judgment and showed significant insensitivity, but they apologised fulsomely for that and put in hand programmes and procedures to address the problems. It is my view that, in recent years, Her Majesty's Government have done all that is reasonable for the Gulf War veterans. I do not accept that the MoD has ignored them and has not sought to discharge its duty properly and to address their concerns and provide appropriate facilities—indeed, we spent a lot of time arguing about the different chemicals, the causality and so on—but, at the end of the day, as I have said over and over again, the issue is about the level of compensation that these people should have according to what criteria and what is fair.

The Royal British Legion seems to have been straightforward in its latest briefing. It argues that that there should be a £10,000 or more ex gratia payment to the Gulf War veterans, but I have yet to read anything that suggests that there should be a specific ex gratia payment. Its submission also refers to the Prime Minister’s commitment to a military covenant enshrined in law. I understand that this will be in the Armed Forces Bill, and we await the detail to see precisely what it means. However, it is probable that we on these Benches will support the general principle of such a Bill, particularly in so much as it aligns with the forces charter that was set out in the Labour manifesto and that sought to consolidate in law a number of important improvements for all veterans. I think we all share the view that these brave people should have a solid background.

Nevertheless, I find it difficult to believe that such a Bill will contain a provision for ex gratia payments or new categories of compensation, as the Royal British Legion suggests. Compensation for injured and disabled service personnel must be based on a fair and transparent system. I believe that that is the system we have now and that the new Government will maintain such a system. No doubt they will want to review and improve it from time to time, but the system must be the same for all service personnel and it must have the same criteria. It must relate to a proper assessment of disability, it must be fair to all, and it should not depend on special cases driven by special pleading.