A GOVERNMENT minister has said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) ‘regrets any unintended insensitivity’ towards the parents of fallen soldier Jordan Bancroft after clawing back overpaid money.

The MoD has also launched a ‘complete review’ of all correspondence with bereaved families.

Lance Corporal Bancroft’s parents Tony and Sheila received a letter from the MoD in October which said he had been overpaid after his death in Helmand province on August 21, 2010.

The MoD reclaimed the £433 from money from untaken leave that was owed to the 25-year-old, who served with the Duke of Lancaster regiment.

This week Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson raised the issue in Parliament, asking what assessment the Defence Personnel Minister Andrew Robathan had made of his department’s ‘treatment of the parents of deceased soldier Jordan Bancroft’.

Mr Robathan said: “The Ministry of Defence regrets any unintended insensitivity on its part and a complete review of all the correspondence undertaken by the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency with bereaved families has been instigated.

“It is departmental policy never to ask the families of those killed in service to pay money back.

"Our aim is always to ensure families receive the right amount of money as quickly as possible and to conduct a reconciliation of their pay accounts as soon as we have all the information available to us.

“We do not collect any money from the families of deceased personnel, but we do adjust future payments to ensure families receive all the money to which they are entitled; this includes a payment for any unspent days of leave.”