LGBT Veterans Independent Review

Sarah Atherton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

There is precedent for such a scheme, as I say—I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the Canadian scheme—so we are not starting with a blank sheet of paper, and neither was Lord Etherton.

On pensions, it is important that those who thought they did not have an entitlement to pensions look again, because accrued pensions are accrued pensions and were not forfeit. I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point about pensions that might have been accrued after the point at which individuals left the service. There is no way of restoring those pensions, and I hope he will understand that. It would be incredibly difficult to do that, so I am not going to give him any encouragement that that will form any part of our deliberations in relation to the financial award.

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on women in defence, and of the Defence Committee’s inquiry on women in the armed forces and female veterans, I wholeheartedly welcome the statement and thank Lord Etherton for his work. However, I am also acutely aware of the strength of feeling on this matter, which disproportionately affected women, and on the ban on pregnancy in our armed forces. Our armed forces still have pockets of misogyny, poor leadership and inappropriate behaviour, so will the Minister continue to commit to rooting that out so that we can have a better environment for our armed forces now and in the future?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and predecessor. I pay tribute to her for the work that she has done, not least in her report, which has been extraordinarily impactful. I agree with her 100%: we need to root out misogyny wherever it is found in defence. I hope she will accept that, thanks to her report and the work of others, we have taken significant strides in that direction.