Ill-Health Benefits - Non-attributable ill-health benefits
Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Bill
8:55 am
Mr Ivor Caplin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Defence; Hove, Labour)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Griffiths. As you know from our brief discussion last night, despite my extensive research, I have been unable to find a salient fact relating to your defence interests, except what you have told me about St. Athan, which is either very near to your constituency, or in it.
I concluded our last sitting by saying to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) that I hoped we would have time later to discuss further the issue that we were then debating. Unfortunately, we have not been able to do so because of my visit to the west country at the end of last week, but I hope to clarify those issues for the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends this morning. We have spent two hours and 10 minutes debating the first group of amendments, and we are still debating them. I am sure that the Committee would like to make some progress, so I intend to move swiftly through my responses.