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FactCheck: Brown's Gurkha 'battle cry'

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 29 April 2009

Gordon Brown tells his critics that 4,000 Gurkhas will be able to enter the UK under new immigration rules. But is his battle cry just a decoy? FactCheck finds out.

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The claim

"The proposals that we have introduced would increase the number of Gurkhas that can come into this country by about 4,000, and including family, about 10,000."
Gordon Brown, prime minister's questions, 29 April 2009

The background

The PM faced questions - and eventual defeat - today over government's new immigration rules for Gurkhas.

Last week the Home Office unveiled new criteria which allows some veterans who retired before 1997 to apply to settle in the UK. Previously such access was denied.

But campaigners and some opposition MPs say the new rules do not go far enough, amid predictions they will only allow about 100 Gurkhas the chance to settle in Britain.

Brown said today the new laws would allow 4,000 Gurkhas into Britain, along with 6,000 of their family members. Where did the PM get his numbers from?


The analysis

The Home Office said the 4,000 plus 6,000 prediction – described as a "guess" by immigration minister Phil Woolas just six days ago – came from "an examination of records held by the Ministry of Defence (MoD)".

As was established in Monday’s FactCheck on Woolas’ own Gurkha claims, the MoD is responsible for 26,500 Gurkha pensioners who retired before 1997, the cut off point. Gurkhas still in service after 1997 fall under different rules.

So, theoretically, government does have the information to make this sort of prediction, even if the prospect of civil servants sifting through thousands of pension records to make the calculation seems remote. After all, Des Browne admitted in 2005 that such "individual case files" were a costly business to review.

Aside from speculating about the nature of the "examination" of the files, what clues do the new criteria offer to the accuracy of Brown's boast? Will they really allow 10,000 people to move from Nepal to the UK?

One of the new rules is that a Gurkha is eligible to move to Britain if they have spent "at least three years continuous lawful residence in the UK during or after service".

The numbers around this particular criteria are murky. The best FactCheck can do is offer a snapshot.

In July 2006, then MoD minister Tom Watson said: "As of today, 20,426 Gurkha are in receipt of service pensions. Of these, all are drawing their pensions in Nepal except for 99 drawing them in the United Kingdom and 15 in other countries."

Leaving aside the fact Watson's pensions total mysteriously differs from the current 26,500 total - it does hint at how many pre-1997 Gurkhas were living in the UK at one time. Whether they ticked the "lawful" or "three years" boxes remains to be seen. The 99 total at least suggests it won't be very many. Certainly not a large proportion of the 4,000 it seems.

Another of the new immigration rules for the Gurkhas is if they have completed 20 or more year's service in the brigade.

Every Gurkha joins the brigade as a rifleman, and is allowed to serve for a maximum of 15 years, five years short of eligibility. Sergeants could serve for a maximum of 18 years, two years short of eligibility. It was only at the lofty and rarefied status of sergeant major that a Gurkha could serve for 20 years.

So again, not a large section of the 4,000, you would assume.

According to Col William Shuttlewood, of the Gurkha Welfare Trust, this '20 year rule' means the "vast majority" of veterans will automatically be ineligible.


Every Gurkha joins the brigade as a rifleman, and is allowed to serve for a maximum of 15 years, five years short of eligibility. Sergeants could serve for a maximum of 18 years, two years short of eligibility.

But if you've not served for 20 years, under another new rule, you can still get into the UK if you've been awarded certain medals. For example, the Victoria Cross. But there are just two living Gurkhas who received the award.

There are other medals that qualify would-be Gurkha immigrants too. The Military Cross for example, although a quick look at the list of the 675 veterans to have won it reveals it does not exactly relate to scores of Gurkhas either.

The other medals, awarded to the few which is what makes them special, are likely to be similarly sparse. So again, it does not seem likely to be a high number.

There are other new rules too, for which it is difficult to cast much light on in terms of scale and eligibility, such as how many have family already settled in the UK, or those with chronic medical conditions aggravated by service.

Therefore, to try and lend weight to Brown's figures, and the Home Office's claims to have "examined" the records, FactCheck asked the Home Office if it could break down the 4,000 prediction to show how many Gurkhas would qualify under each of the criteria.

We were referred to the MoD, because the figures came from their records. The MoD told us it was the Home Office's lead. The Home Office then said it would not provide a break-down because it did not want to, not because it didn't have them.

Aside from the seemingly restrictive nature of the new rules, what of the 6,000 dependents in Brown's claim?

Earlier this week FactCheck revealed that the formula used to estimate the number of dependents was a loose projection that each Gurkha would have between one-and-a-half to two family members who would want to come to Britain too. Thus 4,000 Gurkhas means 6,000 dependents.

It's interesting to note that MoD minister Kevan Jones admitted last year that there was "no data readily available to give a reliable estimate of the number of dependents from this group". That did not stop Brown making the boast three times in Parliament today though.

The verdict

Woolas described the 10,000 figure as a guess, the Home Office's reluctance to offer a break down suggests that might be putting Brown's claims kindly.

The new rules seemed to offer hope to only the few. Defeat in the Commons today seems to suggest others felt the same.

FactCheck rating: 4

How ratings work

Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.

The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largerly checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.

In the unlikely event that we award a 5 out of 5, our factcheckers have concluded that the claim under examination has absolutely no basis in fact.

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