Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

The initial headline findings of the independent review of the armed forces compensation scheme state that

“the process is overly burdensome and even distressing for the claimant due to unreasonable timeframes and a lack of transparency.”

That is but one of a number of concerns raised about the compensation scheme, all of which veterans across the country have been telling us about for a long time. Veterans, who have made huge sacrifices to keep our country safe, deserve far better from this Government. Can the Minister tell the House when the full report will be published and what he is doing to ensure its findings will be acted upon swiftly?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady is referring to the quinquennial review, which has published its interim findings and will publish its definitive report in the spring. She is right to highlight some of the findings of that report in its interim form, and of course we will take into account all of those—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady will allow me, we will take into account all of those in the spring, when the report is published. One of those things is to ensure that the system is less adversarial than it has previously been, but we have to understand that a lot of the delay is baked in because of the need to obtain proper, full, comprehensive medical reports.