That this House has considered support for Gurkha veterans.
I rise to speak on the subject of support for Gurkha veterans and their dependants. As I speak, Ghanendra Limbu is in hospital, where for two weeks, he has helped me put together this story in a manner that I hope will be befitting. I hope the House will join me in wishing him a swift and full recovery.
Nepal is a country smaller than the UK, bordered by global giants China to its north and India to its south. Its highest point is Mount Everest, and it is from Nepal that for over 200 years, the UK has drawn some of its most resilient, courageous and loyal soldiers. Ghanendra was born in the mountainous village of Khamalung, which has a population of 900, on 27 January 1960. Like many across Nepal, he grew up in poverty, despite both parents working long hours as farmers. His ambition was to one day join the Gurkhas and serve alongside the British Army, as some of his uncles and cousins did—it would be a route out of poverty and into a life of expedition—but it was an ambition shared by hundreds of thousands of young Nepalese.
At school, Ghanendra excelled in football and basketball, but his English was also exceptional, which would soon prove pivotal to his future. In 1977, he travelled to the recruiting centre near Kathmandu and applied to join the Gurkhas. The recruitment process was robust and highly contested; there were tens of thousands of applicants to join a brigade only 8,000 strong. Ghanendra was the only person from his village to pass selection. His parents were immensely proud of their son, but his success meant that he would soon leave his family behind to travel to Hong Kong and begin 11 months of training. In Hong Kong, Ghanendra—with his rural background—learned how to survive in conflict and operate various weapon systems; that included learning how to wield the Nepali kukri in hand-to-hand combat. His field engineer training then took him to Kitchener barracks in Kent, where he trained as a driver and a field engineer.
Throughout this period of training, Ghanendra and his fellow Gurkhas were vaguely aware of the increasing tensions between Argentina and the UK over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. On completion of his training, he was assigned to the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers, which provided the British Army with builders, plumbers and electricians. Ghanendra was selected to train as an electrician, but before he could begin his specialist training, on 2 April 1982, Argentina seized the Falkland Islands, 10,000 miles from Nepal. As Ghanendra recalls, he could barely identify the islands on a map. Britain declared war, and Ghanendra’s platoon commander immediately reassigned him to pre-deployment training.
On 12 May 1982, eight days after HMS Sheffield was sunk with the loss of 20 personnel, the British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 embarked for the south Atlantic, carrying Gurkhas, Scots Guards and Welsh Guards. Later, at Ascension Island, 21162121 Sapper Limbu and his fellow engineers boarded, and he recalls being ordered to prepare to fight immediately on arrival into theatre. Most of them had never travelled by sea, and were constantly sick over the next 11 days. Until 14 June, over the course of the war, during which Britain lost six ships, Ghanendra and his engineers remained aboard the QE2, knowing day and night that they too could be attacked. They remained aboard long after the war ended, to clear ordnance, which littered battlefields across the islands, but Ghanendra states that he was never trained in minefield clearance.
The hon. and gallant Member is making an excellent speech, and the service and sacrifice of Gurkha veterans must never be understated or sidelined. The treatment of Commonwealth and Gurkha veterans in regard to their pensions has been deplorable. The UK Government have rightly recognised veterans’ bravery and their achievements, but that must be translated into respect for their pensions. Does he agree that the UK Government must work at pace and collaboratively with the new Prime Minister of Nepal to resolve these long-standing issues of long-suffering veterans?
I thank the hon. Member for his well-timed contribution. I fully agree, and I will further state that Gurkha veterans, as well as all veterans and members of our armed forces, are lucky to have him as the Chair of the Defence Committee.
I commend the hon. and gallant Member on bringing forward this debate. In the time he has been in this House, he has made a significant contribution on Army, Navy and RAF matters, and we thank him for that.
When I was a wee boy—that was not yesterday—I used to read about the exploits of the Gurkhas in magazines or newspapers. I was always moved by their bravery. I never met a Gurkha until I was on an exercise with the armed forces parliamentary scheme. They were not that big, but my goodness, they were strong and courageous. The Gurkhas have given their all for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, often at great personal cost, as the hon. and gallant Member has outlined. Does he agree that it is only right that we ensure that every veteran, regardless of when they served, receives the dignity, the pension equality and the welfare support that they earned on the battlefield? Does he not agree that words of thanks are just not enough? What they need is practical support, and the Government must demonstrate that in this debate. Today is the first stage in the battle to make that happen.
As always, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his meaningful contribution, and I fully agree with him. It gives me an opportunity to recognise that the Gurkhas’ service boosts the morale of all our armed forces. My prevailing memory of serving with the Gurkhas is that they were constantly smiling, which always lifted the morale of everybody they worked with.
In 2004, Ghanendra’s first application to return to the UK was rejected because he had retired prior to 1997, but the Gurkha Justice Campaign continued to fight for equal settlement rights for all Gurkha soldiers. On 29 April 2009, a Liberal Democrat motion to deliver equal rights to settle for all Gurkha veterans delivered Gordon Brown’s Government a shock defeat. Within one month, the then Home Secretary announced that all Gurkhas who had served for at least four years could settle, but it should never have taken such a prolonged and public campaign, with the backing of Opposition MPs and Labour rebels and only one year out from a general election, to deliver this piece of justice for our veterans.
Ghanendra was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2012, and he moved to Aldershot. He is now 66 years old, totally disabled and clearly unable to work. He survives through food bank donations and the support of Farnborough church members. Notwithstanding the fact that but for a parliamentary anomaly, this country would have kept him hidden away in Nepal, this is a shameful injustice. Ghanendra is tired, desperate and ill. He told me that he wishes he could have his time back—that he could be 22 again, with the use of both of his eyes and his body. I cannot give him that, but I am honoured to be able to speak for him today.
This week I met several other Gurkha veterans in Portcullis House, and all feel a continuing sense of injustice, which I share. A retired warrant officer class 2 of the 10th Royal Gurkha Rifles, 21154152 Phurba Sherpa, told me that he served this country for 20 years and 119 days, yet the years that he served in Asia prior to 1997 were not factored into his accrued pension. A retired infantryman in the 2nd Royal Gurkha Rifles, 21167476 Bhimraj Tumbahangphe, told me that 18 years of his national insurance contributions, collected by the Headquarters Brigade of Gurkhas, are not recognised by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. His pension does not factor into those contributions, and his fellow veterans report the same anomaly. It was further reported to me that the Headquarters Brigade of Gurkhas sidestepped pension contributions by paying Gurkhas through local overseas allowance while they were based in Brunei and Belize.
I thank the hon. and gallant Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) and the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating this really important debate.
My constituency of Rochester and Strood has a long and proud history and association with the Gurkha community and Nepal. There are over 100 Gurkhas living in the Medway towns, representing a sizeable community of former military personnel who have served this country, along with a significant wider community of Nepalese heritage. Along with many Members here today, I have written to the Minister for Veterans and People, particularly on behalf of the Gurkha Nepalese community in Medway and Kent, and I thank her for her responses and engagement.
Given the time constraints, I will not repeat the points about the case that Gurkha veterans who retired before 1997 have for justice in their pension arrangements, which I think are generally well known in this House. I understand the Government’s position, shared by previous Governments, that they are unable to make retrospective changes to such pension arrangements for this cohort of veterans. While the legal position is clear, the reality is that it was not anticipated that so many who are in receipt of pre-1997 pension arrangements would be living in this country.
It is widely understood that the pensions of those whose service ended before 1 July 1997 are not adequate to sustain a decent standard of living in the UK. Many veterans living in this country receive about one third of the pension paid to a British soldier of equivalent rank. As my constituent Sumendra Rai has told me:
“This division is profoundly unjust. It institutionalises inequality among soldiers who wore the same uniform, followed the same orders, and risked their lives in the same conflicts”.
If it is not possible to provide an uplift for their pensions, I strongly urge the Minister to work with Treasury Ministers to consider the introduction of a fund from which this relatively small cohort of veterans experiencing hardship can access additional financial support. The cost to the Government would likely not be significant, given the numbers, but the impact of such a fund on the quality of life of these veterans would be huge.
I commend my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for bringing forward the debate, and for his wonderful and kind introduction to so many of his Gurkha friends.
It would be easy for my remarks to simply be an ode to the Gurkhas and to shower them with honeyed words, because that is what they deserve, but this debate is really about burning injustices—injustices faced by those who have served our nation with distinction. I have had the privilege to meet Gurkha soldiers on many occasions. They are a wonderful people: tough, brave and humble—qualities, I am sure, shaped by the stunning but harsh Himalayan environment. After all, they do hail from the roof of the world.
For over 200 years, Gurkha soldiers have served this country with honour in conflict theatres in all corners of the globe, through the world wars—perhaps most famously in the campaign against imperial Japan—the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. Wherever a British flag has been raised, you will so often find loyal Gurkhas there too. And every time, they have demonstrated themselves to be among the finest soldiers to don a British uniform—indeed, a reputation that truly precedes them.
Yet despite this long and storied connection, we now facing a moment where the Nepalese Government have made overtures suggesting that Gurkha recruitment could be halted if the issue of these injustices is not addressed. I say to the Government and to the Minister—for whom I have a lot of time and respect, because he is a good Minister, if not a Secretary of State—that the noble principle of reciprocity, which has come to characterise this most special relationship over two centuries, must not be allowed to fall into disrepute. It would be a stain on our nation. This is an old and legendary bond, forged in blood and sacrifice, and in the fires of war, and it requires a renewal fit for 21st-century Britain.
I, too, thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for bringing this important debate to the Chamber.
For over two centuries, Gurkha soldiers have stood shoulder to shoulder with British troops in conflicts across the globe. Their bravery, loyalty and sacrifice has been unwavering. They have fought in wars, upheld our values and in many cases laid down their lives in service to this country. I am proud, as the Member for Doncaster Central, to represent a large Gurkha population. I am proud not only because of the service they have given this country, but because of the contribution they make to our city today. They are valued members of the Doncaster community and we are richer for their contribution. That is why I am here today to ensure their voice is heard.
As the Minister will already be aware from speeches by other hon. Members, there are many in the Gurkha community who feel that their pension provision has not been fairly applied. Some are living in real hardship as a result.
This relates particularly to those who enlisted before ’93 and the loss of the pre-1997 service value. Let me illustrate a personal example of this: a Gurkha veteran in my constituency served 28 and a half years, yet for pension purposes only 16 years of that service is recognised. That represents a loss of around £10,000 a year simply due to excluded service. While I understand the position of this Government—and previous Governments—on this, I ask on behalf of my constituent, and many more like him, that there is continued dialogue with Government to try to remedy what feels like an injustice to them.
I therefore ask the Minister to continue working with Gurkhas on the areas they feel are outstanding, not least because my constituents have told me that they feel that the Gurkha offer to transfer failed to clearly explain the loss of the pre-1997 service value and the option to split pre and post-1997 service for pension purposes. Furthermore, will the Minister consider working with the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that Gurkhas who served this country—particularly for a long time, like 28 and a half years—are entitled to the full state pension? That only matches the level of service they have given this country.
The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) prompted me to start reminiscing about 29 April 2009. I do not want to be patronising, but there is a moral message and lesson here for hon. Members in my party: on that day, there was a majority of 21 in favour of a settlement being given to the Gurkhas, with twenty-seven Labour Members voting in favour of it. We were called rebels for that. Sometimes, though, we have to make a moral judgment and say to the Whips: “I believe this is the right thing to do.”
It was a huge success and a fantastic campaign, with much publicity secured by Joanna Lumley, who ran a terrific campaign. The lawyers behind it were Martin Howe and his team, with Mark Collins and others. Momentum built up behind that campaign because people were outraged about the discrimination that the Gurkhas were suffering—it was as simple as that. I have to say that the points that hon. Members have raised today demonstrate that that discrimination continues today.
On the issue of pensions, the argument always put by Government is that they cannot legislate or operate retrospectively, but they can—successive Governments have done that. We should not allow the discriminatory way that Gurkha pensioners have been treated, with all their service not being taken into account and the mythical date of 1997 being used against them; as a result, there are Gurkhas living in poverty here and Gurkhas living in poverty back in Nepal—despite all their service, which we have congratulated them on today. In addition, there are issues in our own community with Gurkhas suffering homelessness and financial distress.
I would welcome the Government standing back and producing a strategy for the Gurkhas who have served this country, looking comprehensively at their current situation and at the measures that could be used to address that poverty. In my opinion, what that means is a fair pension settlement once and for all, so that we can get this issue resolved.
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On 1 December 1982, Ghanendra was attached to 49 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron, Royal Engineers, and was deployed by helicopter to Two Sisters hill. Members of 49 EOD located an unexploded Russian anti-aircraft rocket and began to initiate a cordon. Ghanendra was closest to that rocket when it detonated. He regained consciousness at Port Stanley hospital, several hours after evacuation, where he was told by a doctor that he would lose his eye, and that his hands and legs were badly injured. He was told, before he passed out, that he would be returned to the UK for treatment.
Ghanendra was first moved to Ascension Island on 4 December, where he received further treatment, and he remembers being unable to pass urine. He remembers being given another injection, before regaining consciousness at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich. He was blind in both eyes for two weeks, during which he was operated on by Colonel Youngson, who told him he was lucky to have survived at all. Following six months of treatment, Ghanendra lost one of his eyes, but retained sight in the other, and he kept limited use of his hands and legs.
Throughout those six months, Ghanendra cried day and night. His hopes of a long Army career as an electrician were over at 22. “The Magician”, as he was described by his team-mates on the battalion basketball team, would never play basketball again, and his days on the right wing of a football pitch were over, too. After his discharge from hospital, Ghanendra returned to Kitchener barracks, wanting to seek legal advice, but he was ordered not to leave camp. In 1983, he was told he was no longer fit for the Army and was flown back to Hong Kong. He was physically and psychologically broken, and would have nothing to offer back in Nepal. He was offered a partial pension by the UK Government, amounting to 40%. It was worth 500 rupees—less than £2.50 in today’s money. The UK sent this man, who travelled 10,000 miles to serve the UK in the Falkland Islands, back to Nepal with one eye, a walking stick and £2.50 a month. Shame on us.
Since 2006, Gurkha pensions have been aligned with their comparative armed forces pension schemes—AFPS 05 and AFPS 15—as they always should have been, but service prior to 2005 returned a paltry figure. Bhimraj retired after 18 years in 2003, before the alignment, and the lump sum that his pension accrued amounted to only £3,000. He receives less than £400 a month. The lump sum issued to those on armed forces pension scheme 75 for comparative service, which included Bhim’s brother, a retired staff sergeant, was £78,000. He receives £1,200 as a monthly pension payment.
My Gurkha friends recounted this week that, at the conclusion of the Borneo confrontation in 1966, thousands of Gurkhas who had fought for and served the UK’s interests found themselves superfluous and were discharged from the Brigade of Gurkhas. They were left ineligible for a pension. Those who had served over nine years at discharge were issued a single payment of £360, and those who had served for less than nine years were given £250. Today, thousands of the descendants of these warriors live in the rural regions of Nepal, because they cannot afford to live in Nepalese cities—the dependants and descendants of our veterans, who have been left with barely even a historical footnote.
I was told by my Gurkha friends that the Home Office, under this Government, almost exclusively refuses visitor visas for relatives of Gurkha veterans living in the UK. I was told that, since 2019, Department for Work and Pensions rules state that those receiving benefits may leave the UK for a maximum of only 28 days continuously. This timeline is especially prohibitive for Gurkha veterans wanting to visit their families in rural Nepal; it can take over a week to reach these regions as, having transited the airbridge to a major settlement, doing so demands journeys of hundreds of miles over mountainous terrain by road and foot.
I have some questions for the Minister, but I will put them forward at a later point, because I am conscious of time. In closing, I want to recognise the dedication of the Gurkhas, as I have observed, on behalf of the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Nepal, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker). She apologises that she cannot be here this afternoon, otherwise she would, I know, have contributed with a genuine and heartfelt speech.
I thank the hon. Member for organising a marking of remembrance at the memorial to the Brigade of Gurkhas in November 2025. She offered me the honour of laying the wreath at that service, which I proudly accepted. When I placed the wreath, I took a moment to read the inscription beneath the feet of the Gurkha Soldier. It reads:
“Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you.”
I want to believe that comment is genuine, and that the reasons for the injustices are that they are so numerous, so complex and so historical that they persist not through lack of will, but through lack of understanding. I want to believe that the relationship between the UK and the Gurkhas is one of friendship, not one of exploitation.
This would also be very beneficial to bilateral relations between the UK and Nepal. Although I appreciate the steps being taken to work with the Government of Nepal to increase support for the veterans living there, it is right for the Government to look to alleviate the poverty and hardship of those who have served this country and now live here in the UK. I would of course appreciate an opportunity to meet the Minister to discuss this further, as I am sure other Members would.
To conclude, supporting our Gurkha veterans who are currently experiencing hardship is about preserving a partnership that has been built over centuries. It is a relationship founded on trust, mutual respect and shared sacrifice, and it is important that we acknowledge the loyalty that the Gurkhas have shown to this country, and do our best to ensure that they do not experience poverty and hardship in their well-earned retirement.
The pre-1997 settlement, based on Indian army rates, does not reflect the financial reality of living in Britain in 2026, with much higher associated costs and diminished purchasing power. Frankly, the tripartite agreement of 1947, the year of India’s independence, is now an outmoded covenant. British and Indian regiments are now separate, so for India to remain under this arrangement is otiose. The fact is that we have Gurkha veterans today who are victims of the legacy of a system that is no longer fit for purpose. How can it be that men who served our country in uniform are still not entitled to the same pension settlement because of a technicality rooted in the date—1997—that their service concluded?
Finally, an ode to the Gurkhas is richly desired and deserved, but justice for the Gurkhas is required—now.
I thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury once again and look forward to hearing the Minister’s answer. This is an important debate to have in the House today, not just to highlight the issues that Gurkhas are facing across this country, but as a chance to celebrate their contribution, both to my city and to the nation.
There are issues with regard to housing, as I have said, but also with regard to health. We have always extolled the Gurkhas for their bravery, and different surveys have demonstrated that they may suffer less post-traumatic stress disorder than other service people, but I think that is a bit of a myth. I think there are issues with regard to their experiences and the impact that has had on them, and that as they get older, because of this myth, they may not be getting the support and treatment that they should rightfully access. So we need a Gurkha strategy—that is what I would like to see coming from this Government.
In my community, 25 or 30 years ago there must have been only about five Gurkha families, but we now have a sizeable community of at least 500 or 600 families. We have set up a local Gurkha association. One thing we have been successful in is that it wanted a part of the local cemetery dedicated to the Gurkhas. It now has part of that cemetery and we have commemoration services there every year. The Gurkhas contribute widely to the community. Just as they served in the military so well, they serve so well within our community. We therefore owe them a debt of honour to resolve some of these issues, particularly on pensions.
As the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) mentioned, yes, we have established the Gurkhas’ right of settlement, but there are issues with regard to visas and other matters that fly in the face of the practice of their family life and cultural life. Those need resolving. I would welcome the Government standing back, looking at whether we can develop a comprehensive strategy and reporting back to the House so that we can have a checklist of actions that we can all support on a cross-party basis to address the concerns of these people we have all admired so much.