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Gurkhas

That was certainly not the view of the Home Affairs Committee, which felt that it was possible to separate out the issue of settlement from that of pensions. We have very much lived up to our responsibility as a Government first to those Gurkhas discharged after 1997, who have been granted entitlement to move on to the wider armed forces pension scheme and, secondly, to those discharged pre-1997, who have received—thanks to this Government's investment—a much enhanced entitlement under the Gurkha pension scheme. It was the distinction between pre and post-1997 that was upheld in the court ruling, and we believe that the same distinction is being upheld in the policy that we are announcing.