Former veterans minister Tobias Ellwood has accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of deliberately withholding the medical records of Cold War veterans who oversaw nuclear tests, calling it “an absolute cover-up”.
Ellwood told BBC Newsnight he now believes some information he gave to Parliament about the UK’s nuclear programme, based on MoD briefings, was “a complete lie”.
Veterans have campaigned for the release of their medical histories, arguing blood and urine test results could help them prove that nuclear exposure damaged their health.
An MoD spokesperson said the government had conducted an “extensive records discovery exercise” to address questions about the programme, with its findings published in full.
As many as 25,000 members of the UK armed services, scientists and civilians took part in the nuclear testing programme between 1952 and 1967 at sites including Australia and several islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Veterans have claimed the tests caused severe lifelong health problems, alleging they have suffered cancers of the liver, bone, bowel, skin and brain, as well as leukaemia, heart disease, stillbirths and generational birth defects as a result of their exposure.
Ellwood, who served as a junior defence minister between June 2017 and July 2019, said he believed ministers over the years had been briefed to say they had no evidence to help nuclear test veterans, despite thousands of documents about the programme being held.
He said the information was “deliberately withheld” by the MoD and claimed there was an effort to delay its until surviving veterans had passed away.
“The more you unpick this story, the more murky, the more shady, the concerning it becomes,” Ellwood told Newsnight, calling it bigger than the infected blood, Windrush and Post Office scandals “because of the longevity… and the number of people that have been involved”.
“This is a scandal. It’s absolutely tarnished the reputation of the MoD.”
Calling for an independent tribunal into the matter, Ellwood asked: “Why it is that the MoD – rather than help veterans, provide the information – closed ranks and said ‘nothing to see here’, and then told ministers such as me ‘actually we haven’t got that information and we’re not willing to help the veterans’?”
The ministry in 2024 promised to embark on a comprehensive examination of any information the department held on the issue, and has since released five reports.
In those, it said there were a number of factors affecting the way medical records were kept, including the lack of a centralised approach and high levels of Cold War “secrecy”.
Ellwood conceded that some documents were to be handed to the National Archives, but said they would still be heavily redacted: “They have to be declassified. This isn’t enough to help the veterans, who understandably remain deeply angry.”
An MoD spokesperson said the government had examined “tens of thousands of documents to address long-standing questions from veterans about blood and urine testing policies during the nuclear testing programme”.
They said it had been published in its entirety “following regular engagement between Ministers, nuclear test veterans and community groups throughout the process.”
“We owe an enduring debt of gratitude to the more than 22,000 Service personnel, scientists and civilians who contributed to the UK’s nuclear testing programme and helped safeguard our national security,” the spokesperson said.
