Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he will take to improve the timeliness of payments of the war pension scheme for armed forces veterans.

There is no delay in making payments once an eligibility and entitlement decision is reached.

The return to office in 2021 significantly increased operational capacity and the implementation of a recovery plan has seen a significant reduction in holdings. A return to Key Performance Indicators is expected for the War Pensions Scheme claims in February 2022. Veterans UK is also currently embarked on a £40 million programme to digitalise its services which remain paper centric. This will improve the customer experience, speed up processing and reduce cost.