War Widows (Hansard, 16 June 1998)

§ Mr. Denham

One of our key aims is that delivery of service should be simpler and more efficient. The administration of the War Pensions Agency is a matter for its Chief Executive, Mr. Gordon Hextall. I have asked him to write to my hon. Friend.

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Letter from G. Hextall to Mr. Michael Wills, dated 15 June 1998:

The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Questions about claims and awards of War Widows Pension related to exposure to nuclear tests, between the dates January 1988 to December 1993 and January 1994 to May 1998.Under the War Pension Scheme a War Pension may be awarded to ex-servicemen or their widows in respect of death or disablement which is due to service in the Armed Forces. Consequently, claims may be made by the widows of men who participated in the UK nuclear weapons test programme in respect of a wide variety of conditions which may have lead to or hastened death. The War Pensions Agency collates data on all cases where it is claimed that the late husband was exposed to excess radiation as a result of participation in the tests, even where the claim for pension is for a condition a widow has not regarded as related to such exposure.The Secretary of State's normal policy is that where there is reliable evidence of exposure to excess ionising radiation and a recognised link between a claimed condition and such exposure, an award of War Pension may be made.As a result of concern amongst some test participants about the effects their participation has had on their health, the Ministry of Defence commissioned an independent study by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB). The study compared the mortality and cancer incidence in over 20,000 test participants with that of a similar-sized control group of ex-servicemen who had not participated in the test programme.The NRPB Report, published in 1988, concluded that participation in the UK tests has not had a detectable affect on the participants' expectation of life, nor on their risk of developing cancer in general. It did, however, raise a reasonable doubt that leukaemia (other than chronic lymphatic leukaemia) and multiple myeloma might be due to participation. Whilst the NRPB Report did not causally relate leukaemia specifically to participation in the nuclear weapons tests, its evidence was nevertheless accepted as raising a reasonable doubt that these two conditions may have resulted from such participation. The relevant War Pension Legislation provides that an award may be made if, on the basis of reliable evidence, there is a reasonable doubt that a condition is due to service; the benefit of any reasonable doubt is given to the claimant. Awards of War Pension were therefore made on that basis.In the table, the "total awarded" figure represents the total number of awards of War Widows' Pensions made to the widows of men who participated in the tests. Awards therefore include both those made as a result of the Secretary of State's normal policy following the evidence from the NRPB, and those made as the result of a condition arising from service unrelated to participation in the tests. The awards made as a result of the NRPB reports are recorded in the next column headed "Radiation Award".

Awards made as a result of NRPB reports
	January 1988 to December 1993	January 1994 to May 1998
Claims received	104	55
Total awarded	24	6
Radiation award	12	0
Rejected	80	41

8 claims are still under consideration.

The 12 Radiation Awards for 1988–1993 are included in the Total Awarded column.

Of the 24 awards made between January 1988 and December 1993, our records show that 18 widows are still in receipt of a War Widows Pension.

I hope you find my reply helpful.