Gurkha Veterans deserve right to stay

They have earned it, after all.


Press Association: Gurkhas to hear settlement ruling

Gurkha campaigners are due to find out if the Government has bowed to pressure to give veterans who left the Army before 1997 the automatic right to settle in the UK.

Immigration rules introduced in 2004 allowed serving Gurkhas with at least four years' service to settle in the UK.

But the rules do not apply to Gurkhas discharged from the British Army before July 1 1997.

Last year a High Court judge ruled that the policy excluding older veterans was unlawful and in need of urgent review.

The Government pledged to publish a new policy by December 2008 but the deadline passed without an announcement and in March campaigners returned to court to enforce the ruling.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is due to announce the new policy to the House of Commons while Gurkha veterans and campaigner-cum-actress Joanna Lumley watch from the public gallery.

But campaigners fear the new rules will still not give older Gurkhas the same rights as their younger counterparts.

Gurkhas who left the Army before 1997 are allowed to apply for the right to settle in this country but more than 2,000 former Gurkha soldiers have been refused permission.

Victoria Cross winner Tul Bahadur Pun, who is in his 80s, was only granted leave to stay in 2007 after a long campaign against a decision by officials to turn down his application.

The Gurkha brigade was formed following the partition of India in 1947 but Nepalese Gurkha soldiers have been part of the British Army for almost 200 years.