Between 1967 and 2000 - when homosexuality was no longer a criminal offence in civilian life - some 20,000 gay people were thrown out of the Armed Forces because of their sexuality under discriminatory rules in the services to which they were subject.
The appalling consequences of that injustice - in social, financial and human terms - were set out in harrowing detail in a report last July by Lord Etherton, a former Master of the Rolls, the country’s second most senior judge. The report’s 49 recommendations were accepted by the Government, following a full public apology to these veterans by the Prime Minister.
There has long been cross-party campaigning in the Lords on behalf of LGBT veterans in which Alistair Lexden has been prominently involved, along with Michael Cashman on the Labour benches. Both of them draw on expert advice from Professor Paul Johnson of Leeds University.
Naturally, they are keen to ensure that the Government carries out its commitment to implement the recommendations in the Etherton report. Overall, reasonable progress has been made: 26 of the recommendations have been given effect, and work is in hand on the remainder.
Financial redress really needs to be settled urgently, and the Government was pressed to move faster by Michael Cashman and Alistair Lexden in the Lords on 21 March.
The latter said: “Do the Government realise that there is grave anxiety among brave and unjustly treated LGBT veterans, because Ministers do not seem to have accepted in full a central recommendation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, that claims for financial compensation should be met unless the Government can ‘disprove the evidence of the veteran making the claim’ ”?
He continued: “Since many of the relevant records have been destroyed by the MOD, would it not be quite wrong to place the burden of proof on veterans?"
He went on to give an example of the human cost of delay: “Is it not indefensible that severe financial hardship should be endured by veterans such as Mr Joe Ousalice, now suffering from terminal cancer, who was sacked simply because he was gay after giving nearly 18 years loyal service to the Navy?”
The pressure on the Government will need to be kept up since the Lords Defence Minister said that it could be the end of 2024 before a financial scheme was settled, adding “I commit to updating the House on the design of the scheme before the Summer Recess.”
Our obligations to LGBT veterans are not being fulfilled fast enough.
