The government has confirmed it is considering a medal for Britain’s nuclear test veterans, as well as “all options” of wider national recognition.
It comes just a week after the Mirror took a group of campaigners to meet the Prime Minister in an historic meeting in Parliament - the first of its kind since Winston Churchill ordered the first atomic blast, 70 years ago.
And it seems he listened. Parliament has been told that the PM has already taken the issue away from a secretive Whitehall medal committee which we reported in April had been corrupted by meddling civil servants.
Veterans Minister Leo Docherty, who was in the meeting with Operation Grapple veteran John Morris, his granddaughter Laura, siblings Alan Owen and Laura Jackson, widow Jacqueline Purse and her disabled son Steve, said it was a “privilege” to hear their stories.
At the Defence Select Committee, Labour’s Emma Lewell-Buck, MP for South Shields, asked him: “Do you believe that they deserve compensation and an apology, because that’s the main thing they want, not just a medal?”
Mr Docherty replied: “I get that. Having listened to the testimony in the meeting, I think we were left in no doubt of the significance of the issues.”
He added: “I gave a commitment during that meeting we would look again and consider all options attendant to recognising the depth of the impact… we committed to look at all of those issues and we’re doing just that.”
Recommendations for honours are discussed by sub-committees, before passed to the main ‘Honours and Decorations’ Committee, which includes representatives of the Prime Minister and Her Majesty the Queen.
The Mirror won a medal review for test veterans in 2018, but since then the advisory military sub-committee (AMSC) has refused a medal three times on the grounds there was no “risk and rigour” to service at the Cold War radiation experiments.
We reported in April on internal MoD emails which showed officials fed the AMSC bogus information servicemen were kept safe, when the government’s own documents prove servicemen were deliberately exposed in full knowledge of the risks.
The Prime Minister was shown those emails in last week’s meeting and said he would look at the committee “with a sceptical eye”, and it now seems he has already moved the issue out of their reach. The AMSC was not even included when the minister talked about the discussions now underway.
Mr Docherty told the select committee: “At that meeting I committed to task MoD officials to look again at the possibility of an award of a medal to recognise this issue. Again, clearly, it will be a matter for the Honours and Decorations committee, but we will re-look at this issue and I committed to that in the meeting."
The government has been given a deadline of October, which is the 70th anniversary of Britain's first atom bomb, codenamed Operation Hurricane.
