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Defence Policy

What the public will see is this: for losing limbs or major organs, someone would get a maximum of £285,000 plus a guaranteed-income pension, while someone working as a civilian who got a wrist injury would get a much larger sum and probably be back at work and able to generate their own income within a relatively short time. The public do not appreciate that discrepancy or the legalities that are being put forward—they view one as overly generous in relation to the other. I hope that the Government understand that when they finally review the matter, because the public perception of the fairness of the treatment of our armed forces is extremely important. Let me turn to a matter that has recently been raised in the press: the treatment of military personnel in hospitals in the United Kingdom. Having visited the field hospital in Iraq, where our personnel are treated magnificently and not a single person has contracted a case of MRSA, I find it amazing that Private Jamie Cooper, the youngest British soldier to be injured in Iraq, is now back in Selly Oak with a C. difficile infection and two MRSA infections. We have to do an awful lot more as regards the quality of the medical care that is given. In general, the quality of care is superb, but surely something is very wrong when a field hospital can manage to have minimal infection levels, but on coming back to the UK our military personnel find that having fought off the enemy in Iraq they are having to fight off infections in the national health service of the world’s fourth richest country. Something is very wrong with a medical system that allows that to happen.