Nuclear Test Veterans: Medals

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.

Yesterday’s announcement was a huge victory for our nuclear test veterans and their families. Finally, those veterans will receive the long-overdue medallic recognition they so deeply deserve. When I have spoken to nuclear test veterans and their family members in meetings and at rallies, I have found their passion for justice truly inspiring.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the nuclear test veterans campaigners specifically on the tireless perseverance that made this announcement happen: LABRATS, the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, the Daily Mirror and its columnist, the relentless Susie Boniface. I was privileged to join them at the National Memorial Arboretum yesterday to witness the announcement and hear their moving testimonies. The outburst of applause was followed by deep sighs of simple relief that the medals have finally been agreed to, 70 years on from the first British test of a nuclear weapon.

Our country owes nuclear test veterans from across the UK and the Commonwealth a debt of gratitude. Their service, far away from home, ensured that the UK had a nuclear deterrent as part of ensuring our security and safety. They made that commitment to our country at great personal cost. Reports state that nuclear test veterans have a legacy of cancers, blood disorders and rare disease, while their wives report three times the usual rate of miscarriage. Their children also have 10 times the normal amount of birth defects and are five times more likely to die as infants. That was the cost of our nation’s safety.

This statement is the House’s opportunity to say thank you to our nuclear test veterans for their service and their deep personal sacrifices. On behalf of the Labour party, I thank the nuclear test veterans who served in Operations Hurricane, Totem, Mosaic, Buffalo, Grapple, Antler, Dominic, Kittens, Tims, Rats, Vixen, Ayres, Hercules and Brumby. Only around 1,500 of the 22,000 service personnel who took part in those trials are thought still to be alive, so I hope the nuclear test veterans’ families and descendants finally feel that that historic injustice has been recognised. It is completely right that these medals can be awarded posthumously and that the veterans’ dedication to our country will not be forgotten.

The Labour party has been proud to give nuclear test veterans our fullest backing. The shadow Defence team has consistently supported their campaign for justice, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey). My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was the first party leader to meet the nuclear test veterans and their families and commit his support to their campaign. To ensure this situation never happens again, we are committed to a complete review of the system for awarding medals to serving personnel and veterans. The recognition they deserve should not require people to resort to lengthy campaigns or ministerial interventions.

Will the Minister commit to ensuring that the eligibility criteria for the nuclear test veterans’ medallic recognition are as wide as possible? What resources will be put into finding living descendants of nuclear test veterans to award posthumous medals? Finally, will the Minister support Labour’s proposal for a root-and-branch review of the whole medals process?

[Johnny Mercer]

I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words. She is right to pay tribute to the campaigners in this space; as politicians we come and go, but these individuals have been campaigning over many years. I met a man yesterday who started campaigning for a medal 60 years ago. I pay tribute to those campaigners for their relentlessness and their ability to keep going, and I am delighted we have been able to do something, cognisant of the fact that there is more to do.

Of course the criteria will be as wide as we can possibly make them. While this announcement is one thing, delivering it to the people for whom it means so much is where the challenge lies. There are resources going into that; we have committed £450,000, part of which is for creating an oral archive, which will require us to go around and gather experiences and work with groups such as LABRATS, the BNTVA and others to get it right.

On the honours system, the Defence Secretary has been clear that he is prepared to look at how military operations fit into the bracket of medallic recognition. We need to be careful about political interference in that, but he has made his position clear on a number of occasions. In fact, that work has started: we saw during the summer how medals were awarded outside the usual parameters for Operation Pitting. That is an ongoing discussion that we can certainly have.