No.10 Letter Urges Fair Compensation for LGBT Veterans

As a proud member of the LGBT Veterans Coalition, Help for Heroes is a co-signatory of an open letter sent to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, calling for assurances on a promised Parliamentary debate regarding compensation available to affected veterans.

The letter, from Fighting With Pride’s coalition chair, Craig Jones MBE, features the signatures of senior representatives from a number of charities – both military and LGBT – and is to be handed in at 10 Downing Street today (Wednesday, 23 October).

The LGBT Veterans Independent Review, chaired by Lord Etherton and published in 2023, was a report into the service and experiences of LGBT+ veterans, who served between 1967 and 2000, in the context of the pre-2000 ban on homosexuals serving in the Armed Forces.

Although progress has been made on more than 32 of the 49 recommendations in the review, and veterans minister Al Carns has vowed to launch a financial redress scheme for LGBT veterans in January 2025, the LGBT Veterans Coalition is fearful the new Labour Government will not live up to promises of restitution.

Members of the Coalition have long held the view that the recommended £50 million compensation pot cap falls substantially short of what is needed to cover the loss of earnings and pensions for people who lost their careers, their homes, and were even vilified in their communities, or served prison sentences, and who have lived amid the ashes of the lives they had previously.

As the first military charity to actively campaign with Fighting With Pride (FWP), in May 2023, we helped facilitate – and chaired – a round-table discussion with relevant stakeholders to further understand developments in the sector and the campaign for justice for LGBT veterans.

The Charity has also worked with parliamentarians to raise questions in the House of Commons and has signed up to FWP’s Pride in Veterans’ Standard.

While the Government and MOD have recognised that the ban was wrong and are, in theory, supportive of the issues the LGBT Veterans Coalition is fighting to address, its members believe pressure on the country’s decision-makers should be maintained in order for earlier promises to be fulfilled.

Our CEO James Needham said: “LGBT+ veterans, both before and immediately after the lifting of the ban in 2000, experienced an almost unique set of injuries due to this discriminatory policy, including wrongful imprisonment, loss of careers and pensions, and exclusion from the veteran community.

"While progress has been made since then, we are concerned by the proposed compensation. Based on the government's estimates, veterans affected by the ban would receive an average payment of just £12,500, which isn’t enough to make up for the damage done to their lives.

"We’re also disappointed that a promised debate in Parliament may not happen before the compensation scheme starts, which would be a missed opportunity for MPs to discuss and ensure fairness for those impacted."