The government has U-turned on a medal for survivors of Britain's nuclear tests following demands from Labour to end the 70-year scandal.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the Commons yesterday that he had ordered his officials to "review" the earlier decision by a discredited medal committee not to award a gong.
The move came just three hours after the Prime Minister's official spokesman brushed off calls for a national apology to mark the 70th anniversary of Britain's first bomb test later this year.
The chaotic scenes followed the Mirror's report yesterday of Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham telling veterans they were victims of "the greatest injustice of them all".
He said: "The Prime Minister of this country, whoever that is at the time that it needs to be done, needs to stand at the despatch box in the House of Commons and make a national apology to each and every one of you, and every member of your families."
Labour also called for medals, a full compensation package, NHS priority treatment, and medical research into the litany of ill health reported by test veterans and their families.
Yesterday lunchtime, the PM's spokesman shrugged off any suggestion of an apology, telling the Mirror: "These veterans played a valuable role towards developing a nuclear deterrent that has ultimately kept Britain safe for decades.
“The protection, health and welfare of those involved in the nuclear testing operations is a vital consideration, as shown by the detailed, documented safety measures and radio-biological monitoring that took place during operations.
“When it comes to medals, that's a matter for the Advisory Military Sub-Committee which takes those issues into account.”
Asked about compensation, the spokesman said: “I’m not aware of any plans along those lines.”
We reported last week how the AMSC has refused gongs to five different groups of veterans in the past two years, while its members have been decorated for non-risky service that included charity work, organising the Invictus Games, and running Whitehall budgets. It has refused a service medal for the nuclear tests three times, claiming there was not enough "risk and rigour" to them.
But the government changed its tone later in the afternoon, when Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, asked the Commons: "The UK is now the only atomic nation with no official recognition or compensation to nuclear test veterans and their families. Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the first British nuclear test later this year, will ministers now do the right thing and give those veterans the recognition they deserve?"
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, a former captain in the Scots Guards, replied: "I hear what the honourable gentleman says and I absolutely recognise that we are now the last country to do so. The recent, the last internal review was in December, I've asked officials to go back and look at that again."
He later told MPs that he could not personally order a medal himself.
The Mirror has campaigned for justice for survivors of the nuclear tests for more than 30 years. Successive governments have refused to compensate them, and no PM since Winston Churchill ordered the first test in 1952 has ever met them.
Boris Johnson promised to meet them in November, but has yet to find time to meet them in Downing Street.
