8/12/20
I am a member of the Defence Committee, this is a Common’s Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Ministry of Defence and its associated public bodies.
Today I questioned Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Defence on how many of our Armed Forces will have to spend Christmas away from their families and on a pension issue that some members of our Gurkha Regiments have raised with me.
I think it is important that we know how many of our Armed Forces are going to be away from their families at Christmas, along with health and social care workers and other workers that spend their Christmas working to support our services.
I am very concerned about the Gurkha pension issue that has been raised with me. This issue seems to be affecting a number of Gurkha Regiment Members that transferred into the Armed Forces Pension – this was always intended to be beneficial to them, not detrimental to some of them, which appears to be the case currently.
The Permanent Secretary could not answer either of my questions today but will come back with answers, which I will pursue.