LGBT veterans hope financial redress scheme will be revealed

Veterans who suffered mistreatment in the armed forces under the “gay ban” are hoping details of a financial redress scheme could finally be revealed to them this week.

Under the ban which lasted until the year 2000, serving members of the forces discovered to be LGBT were subject to brutal interrogation, and dismissal.

Some have faced lifelong consequences, including diminished career prospects, being vilified by family and friends, and no access to their military pensions.

MPs are set to debate the next steps to make amends on Thursday in the House of Commons.

Those impacted have been offered an apology from the Government, and the restoration of their medals.

But one step yet to be taken is the financial redress scheme recommended by Lord Etherton’s independent review into the impact of the pre-2000 ban.

The review recommended this be capped at £50 million, but veterans, campaigners and MPs have said this amount will not be enough to truly make up for what they experienced.

Fighting with Pride, the charity advocating for LGBT veterans, has called on Labour to honour promises it made in opposition to reconsider the cap.

The charity’s campaign director Craig Jones told the PA news agency: “Lord Etherton and the Ministry of Defence have worked hard with this incredible community of veterans to achieve reparations which have restored our national values.”

The former Royal Navy officer added: “But if we don’t restore to them a sense of justice and security we would wish for all veterans in their older age then we shall have fallen short of the mark by a long way.”

Tremaine Cornish, an Army Commando who earned a prestigious green beret, said he had faced lifelong consequences after he was made to leave the forces in the 1970s, and urged the Government to lift the cap.

Mr Cornish told PA he was “close to being homeless again”, which he linked back to the loss of his military career.

He added: “I look at how people who had a full career as we all anticipated, and have done well, I know many I joined up with who got commissions and did well and now have a nice home.

“Now I am in a situation where I have been told by my housing association ‘you have got to go, because we are getting rid of the property’.”

Ruth Birch, who joined the army in 1987, said the Government needs to “step up to the mark and value all the veterans that were willing to lay down their lives for this country”.

When they met during their service, her now-wife Ju was sent on a six-month tour of duty to Cyprus to split them up.

Both were interrogated by the special investigations branch when the authorities suspected they were in a relationship.

She described the £50 million cap on redress payments as “paltry”, as divided among the number of veterans who could be eligible, it may amount to a single sum of £12,500 each.

She added: “In a nutshell, not only what I went through, and my wife went through, and every other LGBT veteran, the fact that the Government has dragged its heels anyway… it is just, I mean, the only way I can describe it is disappointingly crushing.”

Charities including the Royal British Legion and Stonewall have joined Fighting with Pride in lobbying for the cap to be lifted, as have MPs.

In correspondence with parliamentarians, ministers have insisted the proposed payments should not be referred to as compensation or compared with the financial packages for the Horizon and Infected Blood scandals.

This is because ministers have argued the scheme does not aim to recompense the veterans for lost earnings they may have suffered because of the ban, PA understands.

The Ministry of Defence has previously said it deeply regrets how LGBT armed forces personnel were treated between 1967 and 2000 when the ban was in place.

It was “wholly unacceptable and does not reflect today’s Armed Forces”, the Government department said.