I wish to bring to the Minister's attention the case of my constituent, Tina Thompson, and her young son Aidan. Tina's husband and Aidan's father, Sergeant Michael Thompson, was a 38-year-old soldier with a 17-year career in the Army. His service included two tours of duty in Iraq, as well as Kosovo, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. He served with the Royal Logistics Corps.

Sergeant Thompson worked at the Joint Service Signal Unit—JSSU—in Ayia Nikolias in Cyprus, although the family was housed at Dhekelia garrison as there had been no suitable family accommodation at Ayia Nikolias at the time. The camps are 11 miles apart.

Sergeant Thompson used often to travel to work on his motorbike. The family was due to move to a house at Ayia Nikolias on 21 July. It was a move that the family never made in the end, because on 14 July 2005 he was killed in a road traffic accident by St. Raphael church on the Larnaca-Famagusta road on a fine day on a dry asphalt surface, when a Nissan pick-up truck signalled to turn right.

The driver stopped before turning right to allow another vehicle to pass from the opposite direction. When the road was clear, the driver began his manoeuvre to turn right at the same time as Sergeant Thompson began overtaking the pick-up from the right-hand side. His motorcycle collided with the pick-up's offside rear door and then offside front door. As a result of the collision he was thrown off the bike, on to the windscreen and finally under the truck. Sergeant Thompson received fatal injuries. The driver was finally prosecuted for driving without due care and attention in October 2007, and was found guilty and fined £600.

Most of us who value our armed services and the bond between our forces and ourselves would expect the widow and bereaved family to be treated with sympathy, understanding and compassion. From this point, however, sadly this has not been the case. As well as the inevitable trauma and grief that would follow a sudden and tragic accident such as this, my constituent Tina Thompson has been forced to fight tooth-and-nail to receive the full pension normally awarded to service personnel killed on duty.

Mrs. Thompson has said that

"the pain of losing my husband was incredible but fighting the Government for a small allowance to bring up our son is not something that I ever would have imagined having to go through."

I think most right-thinking people would echo those sentiments.

However, The Ministry of Defence has ruled that Mrs. Thompson and her son are entitled to only half the normal pension because Sergeant Thompson was on his way to work at the time of the accident and in its eyes not officially on duty nor responding to an emergency, although he was demonstrating his loyalty and attention to duty by leaving his home some hours before he would normally have needed to do so.

The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency refused to pay the full pension. Mrs. Thompson, in the midst of her grief, was forced to make an appeal against this decision and won a pension appeal tribunal ruling in her favour that she should receive the full pension.

Unaccountably, despite oft-expressed sentiments of the Ministry's support and admiration for service personnel, it appealed against the decision and Mrs. Thompson's pension was reduced by 50 per cent. She now received £388 a month, which I must repeat is a 50 per cent. reduction in that previously awarded. She made an appeal to the pensions commissioner against this decision last year, but it was unfortunately unsuccessful. To heap further insult on to injury, Mrs. Thompson was not officially informed of the final decision, but instead heard about it through her stepson on Christmas eve 2007. We are talking about more than two years of waiting and fighting for what most of us would have expected Mrs. Thompson was fully entitled to receive, and what we as a grateful nation would have seen to be a matter of natural justice.

Ever a fighter, Mrs. Thompson has again decided, with the assistance of the Royal British Legion, to fight on and to take the case to the Court of Appeal, although she could face a bill for legal costs of tens of thousands of pounds if the action fails. She has said:

"I am disappointed and really upset, it's heartbreaking and it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet...I always thought the MOD would be there to help families and people who have lost loved ones while they were serving their country."

She has also said:

"Most single parents find it a struggle and we have been left alone, the only help we have had has been from the British Legion."

Indeed, the Royal British Legion featured Mrs. Thompson and Aidan in its recent poppy appeal in November. To compound Mrs. Thompson's problems, on return from Cyprus, apart from assistance with the funeral, she has been without help from the Ministry of Defence or the Army. She says:

"I felt we had been abandoned. Out of sight, out of mind."

I would like the Minister to look into several points on her behalf. First, apart from one contact from a welfare officer in 2005, there has been no further assistance. Mrs. Thompson found for herself the Army inquiries and aftercare section, and she has had to initiate the contact herself. Secondly, it took almost two years for her to receive a copy of the police report into the accident and she had to obtain that for herself from a solicitor in Cyprus who is pursuing a civil claim for compensation from the other driver.

Thirdly, the black country coroner has requested details of the accident from the authorities so that he can conduct an inquest. However, the authorities in Cyprus are unable to release the relevant papers until the Attorney-General allows it—that is still outstanding. Finally Mrs. Thompson requires advice as to whether she is able to contest the police report, if she will be invited to the inquest, what actions the Army has taken or is taking against the third party, and what has happened to her husband's personal effects, especially the motorbike. Mrs. Thompson has been let down in her hour of need. Surely concern and compassion is called for when unexpected accidents such as this strike service personnel and their families. I put it directly to the Minister that if he has any ministerial discretion, surely this is a case crying out for it to be used.

In summary, Mrs Thompson lost her husband, her son will never know his father and her initial grief was compounded by the fact that she only received half of that to which she was entitled. Mrs. Thompson had the full amount of pension restored on appeal but has once again lost 50 per cent. of the pension to which she thought she was entitled and must now face the trauma and suspense of a further protracted legal battle for which she now may lose her home to pay the fees to receive what most of us would describe as her right.

Finally, the military covenant states:

"This mutual obligation...between the Nation, the Army and each individual soldier; an unbreakable common bond of identity, loyalty and responsibility which has sustained the Army throughout its history."

I stress the phrase "mutual obligation". Surely as a nation we are obliged to treat our service personnel and their relatives with respect and compassion. Alas, those sentiments appear to be sadly lacking in this case.