Business of the House

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:30 pm on 8 May 2003.

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Photo of John Reid John Reid Lord Privy Seal, Chair, Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Privy Council Office), Member, Labour Party National Executive Committee, Party Chair, Labour Party 12:30, 8 May 2003

I also thank the hon. Gentleman for his good wishes. The expressions of kind sentiment are overwhelming. Before we know it, the Scottish National party will wish me a happy birthday, which would create a precedent.

On early-day motion 1136, I have a knowledge of the issue and am greatly concerned that we treat our servicemen and women properly. I also have some personal experience. I was the first Minister to invite Gulf war veterans in and to institute medical programmes and so on, although to be fair some of those were set up by my predecessor, Mr. Soames. However, we owe it to veterans and medical science to ensure that anything that we are considering as part of the so-called Gulf war syndrome is based on verifiable medical evidence, and thus far there has been no verification that such a disease or illness exists. I am aware that a tribunal last week reached a decision that on the face of it appears to indicate that, in its view, there was such medical evidence, but the Ministry of Defence disagrees. Such decisions can be challenged only on a point of law. There is no point of law on which the MOD can appeal. That is why it is not appealing—it is not because it accepts the medical basis of the decision. We try to provide whatever facilities we can, not only to troops who served in the Gulf war but to all our troops. We are aware of this and continue to search for a possible explanation, but it would be too easy to hold up our hand and say, "In the absence of any evidence we will accept that that is the case."

On state funding of political parties, I heard what Mr. Tyler said. I am not sure whether we can make time for such a debate here, but there are other avenues for discussing those matters. We have been generous in providing £16 million to the Opposition which, as we always say of the public services, just shows that throwing money at a problem does not necessarily solve it. I trust that none of that money will be used for fat cat pay-offs to Mr. Legg, whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned. That leads me to something that I should have done earlier: I wish my opposite number, Mr. Forth, a happy day tomorrow when he goes to his party's bonding session. It will be the first occasion on which the whole Tory Front Bench arrives at a function Legg-less.