Furious veterans slam ‘unacceptably low’ compensation fund for ‘cruel’ military gay ban

Veterans groups have criticised the government’s compensation fund for its pre-2000 military gay ban, branding it “unacceptably low”.

Several veterans’ charities, including the Royal British Legion, have written to prime minister Keir Starmer to demand a higher figure. 

The amount available to veterans dismissed from the forces for being gay has been capped at £50 million ($65 million). The National Audit Office has said up to 4,000 veterans are expected to be eligible, meaning the average payout would be £12,500 ($16,000), the BBC reported.

In the letter to Starmer, the charities said that amount would “not honour the service and sacrifice of a community who faced treatment that had been described as ‘a stain upon the illustrious history of the armed forces’.”

The ban, they added, had been “enforced for decades with cruelty and zeal”.

Homosexuality in Britain was partially decriminalised in 1967. However, the gay ban in the armed forces was only lifted by a Labour government in January 2000, after a number of LGBTQ+ former members of the military launched a legal case, with the help of charity Stonewall.

Dishonourably discharged and jailed

Under the policy, any gay member of the army, navy or air force whose sexuality became known was dishonourably discharged. Some were stripped of medals, others even went to prison – and as recently as 2022, former service personnel have said the criminal conviction remained on their record.

At the time, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) justified the policy by citing “maintenance of operational effectiveness and efficiency”.

But in 2020, the MoD finally apologised for the ban and called the treatment handed out to queer servicemen and women “wholly unacceptable”.

Three years later, following an independent review that made 40 recommendations, a scheme to help those who had been affected was announced. Following the publication of the report, then PM Rishi Sunak called the ban “an appalling failure” of the British state.

The MoD has said it has delivered more than 30 of the recommendations made, but veterans’ charities have said £12,500 is “inadequate and unacceptably low” and “does not bring about the sense of justice these veterans deserve”.

Compensation payments are set to begin in January, veterans minister Al Carns revealed earlier this month.

Making the apology in 2020, then veterans minister Johnny Mercer said: “Volunteering to serve is an act of bravery in itself. To volunteer for the chaotic, challenging nature of service life, and yet within that community experience discrimination of this sort, is unacceptable.”

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