Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his oral contribution of 21 February 2022, Official Report, column 19, what progress officials in his Department have made on revisiting the internal review on the recognition of or compensation for nuclear test veterans and their families; and if he will make a statement on the findings of that review once it has concluded.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
In relation to recognition, it is not within the Ministry of Defence's gift to award medallic recognition to the nuclear test veterans (NTVs). The Independent Advisory Military Sub-Committee (AMSC) was re-established in 2019 to offer advice to the Committee on the Grant of Honours Decorations and Medals (the HD Committee) in the Cabinet Office on historic military medals claims, including cases which may not have been previously considered or where new evidence has emerged. The HD Committee is the principal body with responsibility for making recommendations on honours, awards, and medals to Her Majesty The Queen.
The recommendation of the re-established AMSC was made in December 2020 in respect of the case of retrospective medallic recognition for all those who participated in the British Nuclear Test Programme during the period 1952 to 1991. The AMSC has an independent Chair, and independent Membership, and it has considered the case carefully, including submissions from relevant interested external parties. The AMSC's recommendation to the HD Committee was not to award a medal, and the HD Committee has accepted this advice. Any decision to revisit this decision would be a matter for the AMSC.
In relation to compensation, the Department is considering the findings of the final fourth phase of a longitudinal epidemiological study into health effects among nuclear test participants and any potential impacts on compensation policy. It remains the case that NTVs who believe they have suffered ill health due to service have the right to apply for no-fault compensation under the War Pensions Scheme, in respect of illness or injury as a result of service in the Armed Forces before 6 April 2005.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress his Department has made in relation to war widows pensions since the Minister of State at his Department stated on 10 December 2020 that his Department was examining alternative methods to mitigate the impact on war widows who remarried or cohabited before the introduction of the pensions-for-life changes in 2015.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
As previously stated by my Rt. hon Friend the Defence Secretary in the House, the Ministry of Defence is examining alternative methods to see whether we can mitigate the impact of these changes, and we have been in regular discussion with the War Widows Association on the matter.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the news story on the Veterans UK section of gov.uk entitled, COVID-19: changes to Veterans UK Services, published on 19 March, what steps he is taking to ensure that Veterans UK will be able to offer their full range of services as soon as possible as covid-19 lockdown restrictions are eased.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
Veterans UK has helped over 13,000 veterans since 23 March 2020.
All regular War Pension, War Widows Pension, Armed Forces Compensation and Armed Forces Pension payments continue to be paid into nominated bank accounts.
The full range of veterans' support services, including the Veterans UK Helpline and Welfare Service, has continued to be provided throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and all requests for help have been responded to.
Veterans Welfare Service and Defence Transition Services have continued to operate remotely and provide all services except face to face meetings. Work is ongoing to assess when the face to face service might be able to begin again and will be based on Government Guidance and risk assessments for staff and veterans.
Staff have been returning in a progressive manner to the office since this became possible by implementing the Government advice and maintaining social distancing in the workplace.
Veterans UK are currently in the process of assessing outstanding workloads and developing a recovery programme to process new and existing claims and appeals as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, on how many occasions his Department applied the exemption in section 38(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (disclosure likely to endanger the safety of any individual) in wholly or partly refusing a freedom of information request in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
Statistics on the use of Freedom of Information exemptions are published by the Ministry of Justice in their annual reports on FOI Statistics (Table 10). The annual reports are available here
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
These statistics provide the number of times section 38 as a whole has been used by each Government Department, including the Ministry of Defence. More detailed figures for the constituent parts of section 38 are not readily available because our systems are not designed to provide a more detailed breakdown than is required for the published statistics.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, on how many occasions his Department applied the exemption in section 38(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (disclosure likely to endanger the physical or mental health of any individual) in wholly or partly refusing a freedom of information request in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
Statistics on the use of Freedom of Information exemptions are published by the Ministry of Justice in their annual reports on FOI Statistics (Table 10). The annual reports are available here
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
These statistics provide the number of times section 38 as a whole has been used by each Government Department, including the Ministry of Defence. More detailed figures for the constituent parts of section 38 are not readily available because our systems are not designed to provide a more detailed breakdown than is required for the published statistics.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what instructions have been given to staff in his Department dealing with freedom of information requests on the application of Freedom of Information Act Awareness Guidance No. 19, issued by the Information Commissioner's Office, in considering whether to apply the exemptions in section 38 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
The Ministry of Defence issues guidance to Freedom of Information practitioners on the use of section 38, along with other exemptions. This guidance is attached.