Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will instruct the UK Health and Security Agency to add service personnel (a) who flew atomic surveillance missions and (b) for whom he recently extended the eligibility criteria for the Nuclear Test Medal to the long-term Government study into the mortality of nuclear veterans.

This Government has reset the relationship with Nuclear Test Veterans and the organisations that support them. We remain committed to listening to their concerns and working collaboratively to address them.

In consultation with scientists at the UK Health Security Agency, we have established that it is not possible to add new individuals to the Nuclear Test Veteran longitudinal studies without biasing or affecting the results of the fifth and final analysis. It is important that these studies are carried out to the highest standards, therefore no new individuals have been added to the cohorts.