Truth about UK nuclear veterans covered up, says Andy Burnham

The truth about tens of thousands British veterans who tested nuclear bombs has been "covered up for decades", the mayor of Greater Manchester has alleged.

Andy Burnham told BBC Newsnight the government must act while the remaining survivors are still alive.

In the 1950s and 60s, servicemen witnessed dozens of atomic and hydrogen bomb tests and radioactive experiments in Australia and the South Pacific as part of the UKs nuclear programme. Veterans claim the tests caused severe lifelong health problems, and that the government continues to conceal their health records.

The Ministry of Defence has promised to "thoroughly examine" what information exists regarding veterans medical tests.

Veterans, along with many others who were exposed, are preparing to launch civil legal action against the MoD to gain access to their own medical records.

They say their records are being illegally withheld, and harm was done to them and their families by the MoDs failure to keep, maintain and release them.

Survivors allege 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 exposure to the nuclear tests.

John Morris, 87, worked as a laundry operator "washing contaminated clothing" on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean in the 1950s, and said he witnessed tests of three atomic bombs and one hydrogen bomb.

"If youve seen the film Oppenheimer, I sat 20 miles from a nuclear explosion that was a thousand times greater than that explosion," he told Newsnight.

"People have reckoned it was like sitting in the centre of the sun," he said. "With a pair of trousers on, a shirt and sunglasses."

Mr Morris believes the bomb tests caused him to develop pernicious anaemia - an autoimmune condition - and cancer; and caused his first-born son Steven to tragically die in his cot due to birth defects at four months old.

John and his wife Betty were initially questioned on suspicion of Stevens murder, before being released without charge. It took John 50 years and a Freedom of Information Act request to produce the coroners report which suggested their sons lungs may not have formed properly.

"The MoD had the audacity to turn round and say they looked after us to the best of their ability," he said.

"Im sorry MoD, youve an awful lot to answer for."

From 1952 and for the following 15 years, about 39,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen and scientists witnessed 45 atomic and hydrogen bombs, and hundreds of radioactive experiments, in the Australian Outback and Pacific atolls.

As well as the military personnel, the tests also allegedly put at risk their children and indigenous communities.

"This is a criminal cover-up on an industrial scale and only Parliament can overturn it," said Mr Bunham, who has campaigned on the issue before.

He told BBC Newsnights special programme: "Why has this one got the firmest of lids on it? I think it is because it goes to the heart of the British state."

Steve Purse, whose father David Purse took part in radioactive experiments in 1963, was born with a number of severe disabilities including a form of short stature, as well as curvature of the spine, a respiratory condition and hydrocephalus - a build-up of fluid in the brain.

Mr Purse said his father would describe how contaminated sand would blow "everywhere", including into bedding, clothing and food, following the tests in Maralinga in South Australia.

"Along come I, a few years later, and in my mind it doesnt take a genius to make a link there and say there has to be something in it.

"My condition has never actually been diagnosed - doctors cant diagnose me so theres something genetically different there. Theres something wrong."

His son, aged four, has a condition which results in his teeth crumbling. "One dentist said hes seen this before in the children who were in the fallout clouds of Chernobyl," said Mr Purse.

Another veteran, Brian Unthank, who was stationed on Christmas Island, said he lost all his teeth and his first wife suffered 13 miscarriages and their children have suffered various health issues.

Mr Unthank said he was never issued any protective clothing during the two hydrogen bomb tests he witnessed. He has had treatment for 92 instances of skin cancers, including another treatment this week.

In May 2021, the National Radiological Protection Board said it had carried out three large studies of nuclear test veterans and found no valid evidence to link participation in these tests to ill health.

The independent studies, commissioned by the MoD, said overall, test participants "had similar overall levels of aggregated mortality and cancer incidence" to the control group.

It said records indicate that "relatively few test participants received any measurable radiation dose as a result of the tests".

Veterans blood and urine samples taken from them as young men at the Cold War weapons trials have been reclassified as "scientific data" and placed out of reach at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, an MoD agency.

The government said the database where those records are held – known as Merlin – "has not been declassified" and "contains information ranging from unclassified to Top Secret, with the majority being unclassified".

"Plans are under way to release unclassified records at the National Archives with the appropriate privacy redactions, while classified records are being reviewed for potential publication with necessary security redactions," the MoD said in a statement.

In December, Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs in December that "nothing is being withheld", and that officials would carry out a "detailed dig" amid concerns from surviving nuclear test veterans.

Last May, then-defence minister Andrew Murrison said: "I would like to make clear that the Ministry of Defence, including its agencies and arms length bodies, does not withhold any personal data or medical records from nuclear test veterans."

Susie Boniface, investigative journalist, told Newsnight: "The veterans have always said to me the exact same thing, any time Ive ever interviewed any of them, which is that the MoD policy is to delay, deny, until they die."

She said veterans are missing health records and she believed "the main departmental archives that hold medical records have at some point been sanitised by a government official of some sort whos come along, taken this stuff out".

In a statement to Newsnight, the MoD said it was "deeply grateful to all those who participated in the UK nuclear testing programme and recognises their immense contribution to national security".

"Ministers have directed teams across the Ministry of Defence and Atomic Weapons Establishment to thoroughly examine what information exists regarding medical testing of nuclear test veterans.

"Well provide an update on this work in the summer.

Campaigners have long called on the government to investigate, compensate and commemorate alleged victims from the UK and Commonwealth.

Some other countries have compensated nuclear test veterans. The US - which did far more tests than the UK - offered lump sum compensation of up to $75,000 (£55,000) to people who were on-site for nuclear weapons tests.

In May, a group of veterans made a criminal complaint to the Metropolitan Police about the MoD, saying they were "devastated at the way veterans are being denied justice".

They claim the departments actions amount to potential misconduct in public office with a cover-up of radiation experiments - a claim the MoD denies.

A statement from the Met to Newsnight said: "A report was submitted to the Met Police on Wednesday, 7 May relating to non-recent allegations against a public body.

"The report is currently being assessed to determine the most appropriate course of action. We have not launched any investigation at this stage."