from Sunday Herald, 12 September 2010
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has paid lawyers nearly £2 million to try and avoid paying compensation to veterans of nuclear weapons tests fifty years ago, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
The money has been spent since 2005 fighting a court case brought by test veterans who say they have suffered cancers and other illnesses from the radiation they were exposed to by the explosions.
The MoD’s legal bills have been condemned by critics as a waste of public money which would have be better spent helping the veterans. The MoD pointed out that it has given war pensions to some veterans.
Between 1952 and 1962 Britain and the US exploded more than 40 nuclear weapons in the atmosphere around Australia and in the Pacific. The explosions and their aftermath were witnessed by over 21,000 British servicemen, often dressed only in shorts and sandals.
Over the years since many have claimed to have contracted cancers and other diseases, but the MoD has repeatedly refused to accept responsibility. Since the 1980s it has commissioned three major studies of the health of veterans, all of which have been inconclusive.
Now lawyers representing up to a thousand veterans are suing the MoD for compensation. After a court battle last year, they won the right to pursue the case, though this has been challenged by the MoD.
In response to a request under freedom of information legislation, the MoD has admitted how much it has spent defending the action. “From the start of the case in 2005 the total paid to date to Counsel representing MoD in the nuclear test veterans group action is £1,831,520,” said the MoD’s senior claims officer, Adrian Nash.
“The MoD has wasted a lot of money in trying to defend the indefensible,” said the Conservative MP, John Baron, the patron of the British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association.
“It refuses to honour its debt of gratitude to the veterans. Other countries have, but not the UK.” The US, Canada and France have all agreed compensation schemes for their test veterans.
John Large, an independent nuclear consultant who has given evidence on behalf of the veterans, accused the MoD of pouring good money after bad. "Giving this money over to lawyers is an outrageous waste of public funds,” he told the Sunday Herald.
“It is irrefutable fact that these veterans were exposed to radiation from the weapons tests, and a fact that as a group and individually they have since suffered abnormal health consequences as a direct result of this exposure.”
Large pointed out that many of the veterans had already died, and more would die as the court case dragged on. “This money would be put to better use by immediately compensating the dwindling numbers of surviving veterans," he argued.
Dennis Hayden, the co-founder of the Combined Veterans' Forum International, claimed that the “total cost of the cover-up” amounted to far more that £1.8 million. The MoD had wasted many millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money over the years in studies and in defending individual legal claims, he alleged.
The MoD stressed that it was grateful to all service personnel who participated in the nuclear testing programme. “Their contribution to UK security will never be forgotten,” said an MoD spokeswoman.
“Where an illness is deemed to have been attributable to service, war pensions have been awarded to the veterans. The legal case has proceeded to the court of appeal and as such is sub judice.”
She added: “Judgement is not expected until later this year and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”
According to Sue Roff, an expert from Dundee University Medical School, the MoD had awarded at least 60 pensions to nuclear veterans over the past decade. “The total sums awarded probably don't amount to the £1.8 million that is has cost the same ministry to fight the issue of long term health hazards to nuclear veterans in the courts,” she said.
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