NORTH EAST CAMBRIDGESHIRE’S NUCLEAR TEST VETERANS DESERVE BETTER- MALCOLM MOSS MP

Malcolm Moss MP has this week signed Early Day Motion 156 which calls on the Government to take notice of a recent inquiry into nuclear test veterans and co-operate with veterans to provide them with a better system for hearing claims for compensation.

It seems ironic that the results of this inquiry have been published just after former Cambridge County Councillor and Wisbech businessman Brian Hardy’s death.  Mr Hardy, a nuclear test veteran died in October after a long and brave fight against cancer.  Mr Hardy, a military policeman at the time was one of the veterans of the British Army Christmas Island nuclear weapons tests on the 8^th November 1957. 

In the shadow of the 50^th anniversary of these tests Malcolm Moss MP has called for the Government and MOD to respect the honour and loyalty of these servicemen by following the recommendation of what he describes as a “welcomed inquiry that might finally mean servicemen and their families get the support they deserve”.

There is currently no proven connection between the disease and exposure to radiation, but until the MOD sanctions full and proper research into the effects of nuclear tests on human health there can’t be.  Many families who have been left behind after the deaths of nuclear test veterans are convinced that the effects of the Christmas Island tests were to blame for their losses and it is hoped that the efforts of Malcolm Moss and others will lead to scientific research that will provide them with the answers they are owed.

Malcolm Moss MP states that; “the Ministry of Defence has a duty to investigate the effects of exposure to radiation on behalf of both current and past servicemen and women, people have as much right to know the effects of what they can be exposed to as what they were once exposed to”.

The inquiry, which has received support from MP’s signing EDM 156 titled “Parliamentary Inquiry into Nuclear Test Veterans” also demands that a proper, fair and transparent process for hearing the compensation claims of nuclear test veterans is introduced. 

In the absence of certainty over the general effects of radiation from the Christmas Island tests every case must be assessed on its own merits and this is not currently being done by the current inconsistent and unfair process that ill veterans and bereaved families must go through.

Malcolm Moss MP says of the compensation process “every veteran or family of a veteran must go through a consistently fair and sympathetic process.  We must not forget the efforts of these servicemen.  We must not allow the Ministry of Defence to attribute these deaths to natural causes without proper scientific study, nor should we allow them to put veterans through anything but the fairest and most accessible compensation claim”.