Mr. Jack Palfrey Wakefield (Gratuity Payment)

HC Deb 12 December 2002 vol 396 cc421-2W

Mr. Brady

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what records his Department maintains of individuals receiving a gratuity in respect of invalidity, on leaving HM armed forces, from 1941 to the present; and whether he has a record of a gratuity in respect of invalidity being paid to Mr. Jack Palfrey Wakefield, date of birth 24 September 1916, army serial number 1895475, formerly resident in Crewe. [85667]

Dr. Moonie

For members of the armed forces who have been invalided from service, records relating to consideration of entitlement to war pensions have been held on these cases by the Veterans Agency and its predecessors since prior to 1941. No war pensions files were destroyed until 1989 when a retention and destruction exercise was carried out. The criteria were that files were to be destroyed where no action had been taken on the case for more than 30 years, no pension was in payment and the claimant was over the age of 80.

Under the Armed Forces Pension Scheme, records containing details of invaliding gratuities paid are held by all three services for personnel who left between 1941 and the present day. How long these records are retained for depends on when the person left the armed forces. In general, the following applies:

Left service between 1941–72: Where the pensioner dies and there is no widow/er or other dependant, the records would be destroyed after seven years for Royal Navy (RN) and Army personnel and after three years for RAF personnel. If not informed of this, records would be kept for 100 years from the date of the service member's birth for all three services. If there were a surviving widow/er, records would be destroyed some two to three years after the death of the spouse of RN and RAF personnel and seven years after the death of the spouse of Army personnel.

Left service between 1973-present: Across all three services, records are retained for 100 years from the date of the service person's birth.

Records are held relating to both Mr. Wakefield's entitlement to war disablement pension and to his armed forces pension. However, information from these records cannot be supplied as disclosure of personal information is prohibited under Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 1998.