Ministry of Defence letting down troops over medal, says Ben Wallace
Ben Wallace has accused the Ministry of Defence of letting down troops over the slow rollout of a new medal for service personnel.
The former defence secretary has expressed his frustrations over the Wider Service Medal (WSM), which has been six years in the making and has still not materialised.
Mr Wallace, who served as defence secretary from 2019 to 2023, said he had signed off on the medal, which is designed to recognise service personnel not normally put forward for medallic recognition “over a year ago”.
“Somebody in the system is blocking it or trying to undo what was decided,” he claimed on X, formerly called Twitter. “Not a way to treat any one in the forces,” he added.
The WSM was designed to recognise serving personnel’s contribution to campaigns that keep the country safe, such as those who work on the continuous at-sea deterrent and other campaigns that reflect modern war.
Mr Wallace previously told Parliament: “People hundreds of miles away are contributing to keeping us safe, and they sometimes need to be recognised, not just the person pulling the trigger or storming the bunker; it goes all the way back. In today’s military, the pyramid is very big and very deep, and hopefully a wider campaign medal will recognise that.”
Whitehall inaction
Mr Wallace told The Telegraph he had worked on changing the criteria “over the years” to make it “more relative by shaping it as a medal that recommends contributions to enduring campaigns, which ensured we picked up everyone that contributes to campaigns wherever they may be based”.
“That is reflective of modern conflict and security,” he said.
Mr Wallace claimed that by the time he resigned at the end of August last year, the recommendations for the medal were with the Cabinet Office.
“Here we are, nearly a year later, with an effort by the MoD to undo ministerial direction,” he said.
“It’s not the right way to treat our forces simply because someone doesn’t like being told what to do by the secretary of state.”
However, government sources told The Telegraph the proposal for the WSM was “moving at pace” since Mr Wallace signed off on the proposal in August 2023.
The proposal was then sent to the Honours and Decorations committee in September, which led to further amendments sent back to the medals team in the Ministry of Defence.
A further proposal went back to the committee in December.
‘Moving at pace’
The source added that the medal was working through part of an “agreed process” and “will be announced this year”.
It is not the first time medals for military personnel have struggled to get through the Ministry of Defence.
In 2021, The Telegraph revealed that military personnel who risked their lives in Operation Pitting, the drawdown of troops in Kabul, would not be given medals because the two-week evacuation effort did not reach the stipulated 30 days continuous service for which they are awarded.
Troops were eventually awarded a medal after a Telegraph campaign highlighted what many considered an injustice. At the time military sources had warned that amending the criteria “could become an issue for the medallic recognition processes in the longer term”.
In response to Mr Wallace’s claims, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “Medals play an important role in acknowledging the crucial work of our brave personnel. We are working with other government departments to ensure we get this right – any changes will be announced once the required consultation and approval process are complete.”
