Latest Channel 4 News:
Row over Malaysian state's coins
'Four shot at abandoned mine shaft'
Rain fails to stop Moscow wildfires
Cancer blow for identical twins
Need for Afghan progress 'signs'

'We must fight for fairness for injured troops'

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 05 March 2010

Colonel Richard Kemp gives his reasons for campaigning to extend the increased compensation for injured soldiers to those injured in Iraq and Afghanistan before 2005.

Injured soldier (credit:Getty Images)

Throughout history wounded soldiers have held a special place in the minds and spirits of the British people. 

Whether in the quagmire hell of the Somme, under murderous Luftwaffe strafing on the open beaches of Dunkirk, in the sniper alleys of West Belfast, the unbearable dust and heat of Basra or the jungle-like ambush fields of Helmand - these brave men and women have risked all, and given so much, for us.

The British people do not want these heroes to be treated in the same way and according to the same norms as any other public sector employee. They want them to get the best possible healthcare, to be treated in the best possible way and to be looked after with the respect and dignity they deserve, if necessary for the rest of their lives.

At last, under a review by former Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral the Lord Boyce, the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme has been enhanced to provide financial support that is worthy of our wounded service men and women.

More on the Lives on the Line campaign:
- Lives on the Line Facebook group
- Petition on the Number 10 website

Guaranteed income payments have been increased by 35 per cent, reflecting the long-term needs of the most seriously wounded, their likely career progression, and the later retirement ages that are becoming increasingly common in the UK.

The government - and in particular the highly dedicated Minister for Service Personnel, Kevan Jones MP - deserve to be given full credit for these excellent improvements.

But in a decision that must soon come to be recognised even within the civil service that devised it as a gross misjudgment, the government has explicitly excluded a proportion of servicemen from this scheme.

In 2005 the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme was introduced because the previous system, dating back to World War I, was not deemed fit for purpose in the modern world. Based on the legislative timetable, not on any logic that related to the military circumstances that were absolutely central to the scheme, the new compensation applied only to those wounded from the date of introduction - April 2005.

Had the scheme been introduced outside of a military campaign that might have been reasonable. But it wasn't. April 2005 was four years into the Afghanistan campaign and two years into the Iraq campaign. These facts are given the clearest possible recognition by the Operational Service Medal, awarded to every serviceman involved in these campaigns over this time-frame.

Instead of being guided by military logic, the Ministry of Defence bureaucrats clung fast to the apparently iron rule spelt out in Lord Boyce's review: "Successive governments, across all public sector pension and compensation schemes, have held the general policy of making improvements prospectively with no retrospective element."

The result: those wounded after April 2005 receive an immediate lump sum up to £570,000 and guaranteed income payments; those wounded before get no immediate lump sum, a much smaller payment on discharge and significantly lower rates of income payment.

Yet they were wounded in exactly the same campaign, at exactly the same place, in exactly the same circumstances, while fighting exactly the same enemy. No working of the bureaucratic mind could be more laughable if it wasn’t so serious - and so dreadfully unjust.

Our troops deliberately and willingly press forward into the most lethal danger to get at the enemy that threatens the safety of the British people. To categorise compensation for those who are wounded in action along with "all public sector pension and compensation schemes" is an abrogation of our side of the military covenant, under which we are morally obligated to reward the sacrifices they make with fairness and respect for them.

Incredibly, the logic behind Ministry of Defence decisions on this scheme seems to focus on non-combat injuries. In a statement responding to the Lives on the Line campaign, the MOD suggested that "it would be equally unfair to deny the improved compensation to those injured away from the battlefield, such as while training or playing sport."

Hello?

Yes, the scheme includes non combat injuries. And yes, these must be taken proper account of. But no, this type of injury, however serious, does not take precedence over compensation for our fighting men who have made such great sacrifices for us on the battlefield and for whom this scheme was primarily established.

Even the Secretary of State for Defence doesn’t buy into his own civil servants' logic. In the Foreword to Lord Boyce’s review of the scheme, Mr Ainsworth opens with the observation that "In Afghanistan in particular (the men and women of the Armed Forces) are risking injury and death to help keep us safe." No mention of sports injuries anywhere in his introductory page and a half.

In a breathtaking breach of civil service logic, even the holy grail of "no retrospective element" has been circumvented under Lord Boyce's review: his improvements to compensation backdate to the start of the scheme in 2005.

This is described as an exceptional measure, due to the importance attached to the scheme by the government. Good. Then there is no great leap of logic to apply the same kind of exception by backdating the whole scheme to the start of the war on terror in 2001, coinciding with the start date for the campaign medals awarded in recognition of service in this conflict.

To do so would unleash no torrent. Thousands already qualify for the post-2005 compensation and, regrettably, it is likely that many more will do so before our current campaign in Afghanistan is done.

But according to government figures, only about 100 were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2001 and 2005. A ball-park estimate translates that into a total cost of £25m. Small beer for the defence budget, but of incalculable value for the future of each and every one of these wounded soldiers and their families.

Few members of the British public will not be incensed at the injustice that this bureaucratic miscalculation heaps upon our wounded soldiers who have already suffered enough in the cause of our freedom.

Our fighting troops are the bravest and the best. They put their lives on the line for us, and we must now fight to achieve fairness for them.

Send this article by email

More on this story

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.


Watch the Latest Channel 4 News

Watch Channel 4 News when you want

Latest UK news

More News blogs

View RSS feed

Sangin 'not a retreat'

image

Author Patrick Hennessey on the Helmand redeployment.

Who is horse-boy?

image

Hoof or spoof? Google Street View mystery figure speaks.

'Serious loss of discipline'

image

Saville inquiry condemns British soldiers for Bloody Sunday.

Afghan fatalities in full

British soldiers killed in Afghanistan

The full list of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

How to tweet

How and why to follow the Channel 4 News family on Twitter.

Most watched

image

Find out which reports and videos are getting people clicking online.




Channel 4 © 2010. Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.