I beg to move,

That this House
has considered nuclear test veterans and medical records.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Vickers.

British nuclear test veterans have now rightly received medallic recognition for their service, and for that I am very grateful to the Government, but the Minister must know that behind their proud smiles, those veterans are really struggling. They—and sometimes their wives, widows and descendants—have reported making repeated requests to gain access to the results of their blood or urine testing samples which they recall being taken during the nuclear testing programme. Sadly, many confirm that their service medical records do not include the test results, and they just do not understand why. The issue is relevant to the current health concerns of many veterans and their descendants and the treatment they need for anaemia, leukaemia and rare genetic conditions. That is why it is so important for them to access the information urgently.

As the Minister will know, nuclear testing veterans first raised the issue of health problems in 1983. In 1985, the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, ordered a health study by the National Radiological Protection Board, which in 1988 reported that there was a “slight risk” of veterans getting leukaemia. The report was only seven pages long, and it was criticised by veterans as a whitewash. It was repeated, with similar results, in 1993 and 2003. Further, it has been reported in recent days that the 1988 scientific report was altered on the instruction of officials.

The link between radiation and illness is now well established. In 2007, genetic research found that nuclear victims had the same rate of DNA damage as clean-up workers at Chernobyl. In 2011, a Ministry of Defence health study found that 83% of survivors had between one and nine chronic health conditions, and further surveys of nuclear veterans report that miscarriage rates are three times higher among their wives and that their children have 10 times the usual number of birth defects. However, despite the clear health risks and the apparent causal links to the conditions experienced by many nuclear testing veterans, very few war pensions are approved unless veterans can clearly show information proving risk and the impact on health. Such information would include, for example, blood and urine samples demonstrating high levels of radiation exposure, but information from successive Defence Ministers or potential record holders has been inconsistent and unclear on whether there were tests, whether records were kept, where they were kept and whether records are now accessible for searching.