M.O.D Pension Injustice

AN  OPEN LETTER TO THE VETERANS’ MINISTER
 Subject: Injustice to Veterans.

Dear Derek Twigg,

I have here a copy of your latest reply to John Greenway, my MP and long-term campaigner against the injustice I ( and probably other unknown Veterans) endure, from the obfuscatory tactics of  the officials who have been advising you.

A recent exchange is yet another repetition of others identical between you, (such as 29th March from John, and 18th July from you), wherein your officials advise an  IDRP approach to “resolve the issue”. This cynical paper “Ritual Dance“must stop for myself and for other possible victims of entrenched MoD  bureaucracy .

I expect you have read IDRP yourself, which serves as arbiter in relation to disputes. I would indeed take your officials’ advice if you and I had a dispute.  Happily, consequent upon your last two letters it should now be apparent that we do not have such a situation regarding the circumstances of the case.

This follows since,  if you wholly accept, as  I now hope and expect you to do, my crucial 4-page “MoD Misunderstanding“ paper of 28.2.06, you will have understood that it was utterly impossible for me ever to have appealed (had that been relevant ) as you implied when writing “Major Perkins was always entitled to appeal that decision, but chose not to do so until 1998”

I was very pleased to note that the recent Government re-shuffle left you  unscathed , Derek Twigg. Also to see your Press picture with Hugh Bayley’s  in a separate campaign  for justice.
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These admirable attributes also apply powerfully and crucially to your immediate predecessor, as Veteran’s Minister,  Tom Watson , following his splendid and reassuring declaration to Major John Perry on 6 June 2006. It went “where service in the Armed Forces has harmed people I can assure you that MoD and the UK Government stands ready to provide full and appropriate financial and other recompense.”  That enormously reassured me as to your own intentions.

Therefore you will understand why I most urgently seek your whole-hearted endorsement of Tom’s powerful declaration. I am afraid it has been put to you twice  by John Greenway on my behalf, in view of my 42 years of endurance, deprivation and penury originating  in my disability on Active Service in Malaya in 1959.- (see discharge letter) but  it has been totally ignored so far . Please now without equivocation provide the missing answer.   

The actual facts involved in those 42 years,  require an enlightened interpretation of  Doug Henderson’s 1999 Declaration to Parliament  on 8.6.99 about  recompense for claimants deprived of the use of their money prior to the rebate.(“MoD Misunderstanding“ paper of 28.2.06) They are not facts as in Dicken’s  Thomas Gradgrind, for graft, but to justify a genuine claim.

In effect the1999 Declaration demanded that the income tax restored capital of each claimant had  been so restored only on  proof that its original illegal possession and retention by the Government was directly related to their disablement having been acquired during service.

In doing so it referred to the 197 claimants defined at that time as eligible. This was known as Project Haven and agreed by HM Treasury specifically and therefore only for those individuals whose taxation error was due to Departmental error as admitted by the MoD.

I should here point out that efforts were made two years ago by my MP to identify precisely the terms of reference and composition of Project Haven. It is of interest to note that neither names nor criteria employed were forthcoming other than an ad hoc compilation, despite a detailed search by the MoD’s own Librarian  personnel on our behalf.  

I insist that the significant failing in the drafting of those terms of reference at that time betrayed a sad lack of imagination on the part of the officials concerned to appreciate that there could be undiscovered errors involving additional claimants quite apart from those  deprived due to the  admitted MoD Departmental errors. Any such hitherto undisclosed “non-Project Haven” claimants if subsequently discovered, (as may occur) would have to prove, chapter and verse,  whatever their  circumstances, to accord  with the edicts outlined in red in paragraph two above.

Meanwhile, I am such a claimant, as explained in paragraph 4 above and (“MoD Misunderstanding“ paper of 28.2.06). I maintain there may well be others, and this website and Open Letter are arranged to invite any such undisclosed possible claimants to respond, in the first instance to their MPs or to me personally on 01751 - 417769.

You will know from John Greenway’s letters that several itemized references to Government accounting state that such errors alone  carry a liability for compensation in their own  right. In fact, not to press the point, a new one arises from your own new letter of 18.7.07, only received last week after a delay of almost four months in replying to John Greenway and admitted I your letter as  “ an administrative oversight.” So it might well be - but it is one more for the pot.

Finally, I stress that, (again in regard to Government Accounting) it also permits recompense/ex-gratia payments to me as my circumstances are similar to those cases included in Project Haven.

Yours sincerely,

                               Major (retd) The Royal Leicestershire Regiment