Written question asked by Lord Harper (Conservative) on Tuesday, 25 July 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 9 October 2006. It was answered by Derek Twigg (Labour) on Thursday, 2 November 2006 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Hearing Loss

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what research he has undertaken into (a) the number of additional claims for compensation and war disablement pensions on the grounds of hearing loss which would be paid if the threshold were lowered to (i) 44dB and (ii) 35dB and (b) what the additional cost would be.

Answer: It is not possible to define the number of additional claims for compensation and war disablement pensions if the noise-induced hearing loss compensation threshold was lowered to 44dB or 35db. However, following a series of meeting with officials my predecessor wrote to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (““RNID””) on 17 March 2006 informing them that it would cost the MOD in the region of £140 million per year if the Department reduced its noise-induced hearing loss compensation threshold to 35dB. This figure was based on data, for 30 June 2005, from the war pension computer system which shows approximately 105,000 cases with an overall assessment of between 1 per cent. and sixty per cent. with NISHL accepted as attributable to service. It does not take account of cases for which there are no records held on the computer system, or any new claims that will be made if the compensation threshold is reduced.All of the research work so far undertaken by the Ministry of Defence into the number of additional claims for compensation and war disablement pensions on the grounds of noise-induced hearing loss has been on the impact of lowering the compensation threshold to 35db. There has to date been no research into the impact of a reduced compensation threshold of 44db.

Secondary information