Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the efficiency of Veterans UK in processing injured veterans' claims.

I regularly meet the Chief Executive of Defence Business Services, most recently on 29 April 2025 to discuss performance and related issues. The average clearance times for Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) and War Pension Scheme (WPS) claims are currently higher than target, and we are focused on bringing these down. I am pleased to say volumes and clearance times of AFCS claims have begun to fall.

The digitalisation and consolidation of claimants' data from hardcopy records and the thirty-year-old legacy database into a single, whole-scheme IT system will lead to improving long-term efficiency and service delivery for Serving personnel, Veterans and their dependants. However, this has unfortunately led in the short term to disruptions processing claims during the transition period, and officials are working hard to clear the backlog.

Whilst we continue to make every effort to improve processing times, some aspects such as requirements to obtain supporting evidence from third parties outside the department can contribute to longer processing times.