Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Second World War veterans who have applied through his Department to receive the Légion d'Honneur have not yet received medals.

In order to help the French authorities, who are ultimately responsible for the awarding of the Legion d'Honneur, we have developed improved administrative procedures whereby the UK is submitting Legion d'Honneur applications to the French in a steady flow in approximately the order that they were received by the Ministry of Defence.

Some 3,300 applications were received by the Department between June 2014 and March 2015. After forwarding these to the French authorities, the majority of these veterans have now received their award; exceptions are those where no contact information has been provided. Since April 2015 another 1,500 (approximately) applications have been received, and they are still arriving on a weekly basis. These cases are being processed and sent to the French authorities at the agreed rate of 100 per week.