Browne announces help for servicemen

Defence secretary Des Browne has announced that the maximum payment for seriously injured servicemen is to double to £570,000.

Browne was publishing a cross-government command paper containing 40 measures aimed at improving conditions for injured and former armed forces staff, and their families.

The upper limit of compensation payments for those seriously injured in service rises from £285,000 to £570,000.

This would affect about 80 claims made since the compensation scheme was introduced in 2005, and all future claims, Browne told the Commons.

"Everyone with an award for injury under the compensation scheme will benefit, and the most seriously injured will benefit the most," he said.

Browne also highlighted a number of measures designed to end disadvantages experienced by former military personnel and their families when using public services.

Families, who may have to move regularly, will retain their place in NHS waiting lists across the UK.

Admissions policy will be reviewed to ensure children of servicemen are able to find places in good schools, he said.

And all former armed forces personnel with more than six years' service will be entitled to free further or higher education up to degree level.

"We owe this immense debt, and while it can never be repaid sufficiently, we should and will do our upmost to acknowledge it," Browne said.

Other measures highlighted by the secretary of state include:   

• Free bus travel for all seriously injured veterans "at the earliest opportunity"

• Compensation payments to disabled veterans will not affect grants awarded to adapt  housing

• Disabled veterans will have priority on waiting lists for adapted social housing

• Pilots of community mental healthcare for veterans rolled out nationwide

• Seriously disabled veterans given blue parking badges for life

• Steps to improve NHS dental care for service families

• Measures to help retiring servicemen buy homes

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said it may have take the government a "long time" to come up with the package, but said if it was the beginning of a "genuinely constructive and bipartisan approach to the welfare of our armed forces, families and veterans - then it is something the whole country will welcome."

He said the doubling of the maximum payment to seriously injured personnel was welcome, but the points system for determining eligibility should be reviewed.

And he said the government should also update compensation for those injured in Iraq and Afghanistan before 2005.

"The public will find it difficult to accept an arbitrary date for discrimination in treatment," he said.