Jayne Kirkham

Jayne Kirkham

Labour (Co-op) — Truro and Falmouth

Speaking in the House of Commons on 8 July 2025

Debate

Military Helicopters: Blood Cancers

Contribution

I agree absolutely. The health of our serving personnel is and always must be paramount. I will move on to previous cases shortly. I know of 180 cases with solicitors of crew working on military helicopters who have contracted cancers, many like those of the two people I mentioned. They worked on the Sea King particularly, but also the Westland Wessex, the Puma, and the CH-47 Chinook. Many of the crew affected were in touch with each other, as there seemed too many of them, and the cancers too rare, to be pure coincidence. Last July, a report was written by the Independent Medical Expert Group on medical and scientific aspects of the armed forces compensation scheme, and was published in November last year. There was a section at the end on the potential link between exhaust fumes such as benzene from helicopters and blood cancers such as multiple myeloma. The findings were that the evidence and data available did not meet their threshold to establish a causal link between Sea King helicopter exhaust fumes or benzene and multiple myeloma, leiomyosarcoma, and soft tissue sarcomas.

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