Veterans Minister wants nuclear test veterans to have medals by Remembrance Day
Johnny Mercer has said he will be “extremely disappointed” if nuclear test veterans do not receive their long-awaited medals by Remembrance Day.
The Veterans Minister was speaking in the Commons after an MP said one of his constituents had not received their medal in time for Armed Forces Week.
The Government announced in November last year that those who took part in the UK’s atomic bomb test operations would receive medals.
An estimated 22,000 veterans and civilians were made eligible for the Nuclear Test Medal, which has been introduced to mark the 70th anniversary of the nation’s first atomic test.
Between 1952 and 1967, the UK carried out a series of nuclear tests in Australia and the South Pacific, developing weapons much more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
The tests made the UK the world’s third most powerful nuclear power, after the US and the USSR.
Of the veterans that now remain, many are in their 80s but many did not live far beyond their 50s suffering from various radiation-related cancers.
John Morris was posted to Christmas Island as an 18-year-old and witnessed four atomic tests.
“When the bomb went off I felt I had seen the end of the world,” Mr Morris said.
He is a cancer survivor and has had pernicious anaemia since the age of 24, which he says is a result of the nuclear radiation that he endured as a young man.
Many of his friends from his unit have died from cancer and, as far as he is aware, he is the only survivor.
The Nuclear Test Medal can be awarded posthumously.
Conservative former minister David Duguid, speaking in the Commons at a session of questions to Cabinet Office ministers, said: “British nuclear test veterans… welcomed the news earlier this year that they would finally be awarded a commemorative medal.”
The MP for Banff and Buchan said he had a constituent who applied for a medal “at the soonest opportunity” but who has not received it in time for Armed Forces Week, this week.
Mr Duguid sought assurances that “medals will be received in time for Remembrance Sunday” on 12 November.
Mr Mercer said: “I recognise that the medallic recognition has taken a long time actually to achieve.
“And this Government, for the first time in 60 years, has delivered on that medallic recognition.
“I want to make sure that those medals are in the hands of veterans who deserve them.”
Her added: “I recognise the concerns around delays.
“I will be extremely disappointed if medals are not on the chest of nuclear test veterans at Remembrance Day this year.”