A new deal was offered to the Armed Forces yesterday to make up for the upheaval caused by the Iraq and Afghanistan operations, including a doubling of the compensation awarded for the most seriously injured.

Eighty servicemen already suffering from appalling injuries, including loss of limbs and severe burning, will now be eligible for a new maximum lump sum of £570,000 as well as the existing guaranteed income for life.

The ratcheting up of compensation for those injured in Iraq and Afghanistan has followed years of campaigning by wives and parents of serving men and women who, through the media, piled pressure on the Ministry of Defence, highlighting cases where civilians injured in the office were receiving significantly higher awards than military personnel losing limbs from roadside bombs and mines.

Now, as part of yesterday's MoD command paper, entitled The Nation's Commitment: Cross-Government Support to our Armed Forces, their Families and Veterans, compensation will rise for all injuries, ranging from a 10 per cent increase to 100 per cent for the worst affected. The present maximum is £285,000.

Since 2001, in the course of operations and training exercises more than 2,000 personnel have been seriously injured and more than 350 killed, including 285 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The MoD outlined new efforts to provide servicemen and women, and veterans, with preferential treatment in areas such as social housing, school places for children, guaranteed slots in NHS waiting lists and a special free bus pass for anyone seriously injured who has not reached the normal age of 60 for concessionary travel.

However, the biggest headline-offer was the raising of injuries compensation, which will cost an additional £5million a year, to be found from the MoD budget.

Servicemen such as Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, who lost both legs and suffered severe brain damage, and whose mother, Diane Dernie, campaigned for higher compensation awards, is among the 80 who will have his lump sum raised to £570,000. Despite his life-threatening injuries, he was originally awarded £152,150. This was raised to £285,000 last October.

Mrs Dernie, from Doncaster, said: “It's the best possible news. It's the difference between a secure future when we're no longer here and a lifetime of uncertainty.”

She said her son was “positive, determined, cheeky and doing well”.

The lump sum is in addition to a lifetime pension, under which, as an example, a 25-year-old seriously injured soldier receives a guaranteed income payment of £19,000 a year, tax-free and index-linked. If he reached average life expectancy, this would amount to a further £1 million on top of the lump sum.

The command paper was effectively a rewriting of the so-called military covenant, under which the Armed Forces and their families are supposed to be properly looked after in return for the sacrifices they make on behalf of the country. General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, has spoken out publicly with a warning that the covenant was beginning to look “out of kilter”. Ministers have come under pressure to improve conditions of service and provide better accommodation and welfare benefits.

Such improvements were seen as vital to stop people leaving the Forces. Last week an MoD attitude survey covering 24,000 men and women in the Services revealed that nearly 50 per cent regularly considered leaving.

Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces Minister, said that a whole range of improvements had been introduced over the last year, and he denied that the military covenant had been broken.

However, with the two operations continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan, he acknowledged that the time had come to improve benefits across the board, and the purpose of the eight-month review was to bring in all the relevant government departments to pledge financial support for the Armed Forces in their respective areas. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said that it was the first time such a comprehensive framework had been agreed for the Forces. A special “External Reference Group” has been set up to monitor progress and each ministry will appoint a senior official as an “Armed Forces advocate” to resolve issues that may arise.

The other changes outlined in the command paper included a promise by the Department of Health to improve access to NHS dentists for service families; a free A-level equivalent or first degree-level education for service leavers with six years in the Forces; a pledge by the Department for Children, Schools and Families to make it easier for service personnel involved in frequent and short-notice postings to get their children into local schools; and help in getting on to the property ladder by extending service personnel's “key worker status” by 12 months after they have left the Forces.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said the changes in the command paper would “ensure our Armed Forces and their dependants are not disadvantaged by their service life”.

Leaving the Army

— 20,000 leave the Services every year

— 5 million serving in the Forces, reserves, veterans or widows receiving pensions

— £64.7 million spent last year from the Treasury reserves to pay out 43,827 operational allowance payments for serving in Iraq and Afghanistan

Source: Times archive

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