Alarm at slow pace of payouts to veterans fired over sexuality

An MP has raised alarm at the slow pace of a scheme to compensate LGBT service personnel dismissed or discharged from the armed forces because of their sexuality, saying that at the current rate it could take more than a decade to complete the process.

- Peter Walker

Jess Brown-Fuller, the Liberal Democrat MP for Chichester, said she began examining the LGBT Financial Recognition Scheme, formally launched in December, after hearing of the experiences of a constituent, who is one of just 69 people to have been compensated out of more than 1,200 to have applied.

Liz Stead, who was discharged from the RAF in 1969 after letters between her and her girlfriend were discovered by military police, said her case had been given priority because she had a rare lung condition. While she received compensation last month for being discharged, she is still awaiting news of a possible separate payout over how she was treated while in service.

Stead, 77, who was a radar operator, spent six months in what she calls "limbo" after the letters were discovered, which meant she risked being dismissed because of the ban on gay people serving in the UK military in place from 1967 to 2000.