War Widows’ Pension Scheme — House of Commons, 2020-01-30
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Luther Mercer (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who has been a source of strong counsel to me as I have worked my way through this House on the Select Committee. I congratulate him on securing this debate The subject of this debate was one of the first issues I looked at when I took over this role, and I have looked at it in detail. When I first came to this House, I did so with a clear mission. I mentioned at the time that I felt that the families of the bereaved had made the greatest sacrifice on the altar of this nation’s continuing freedom. I know that individuals in that position are here today, and I pay tribute to them for their sacrifice to this nation I think it is incumbent on Ministers to be honest about the challenges at hand. The situations that have been outlined in heart-rending detail today are clearly wrong. It was wrong to take that pension away, and in 2015 the Prime Minister reinstated it. It was corrected. This argument concerns a specific case of retrospection, and I will outline the challenges around that, fully conscious of the fact that the armed forces covenant speaks about special dispensations for the bereaved of those who have died in the service of their country I have a huge appreciation for our war widows. I am well aware that military partners do not have easy lives, and that they have to move around. Let me be clear about the issues at stake. War widows’ pension provision is a complex area, and it might be beneficial to the House if I clarified what we mean by some of the terms. For example, when we think of war widows, we tend to imagine we are referring to those whose husbands have died as a result of conflict. However, the term as used by the War Widows’ Association—members of which we are lucky to have joining us today—encompasses a much wider group of people who have lost their loved ones during service, and not necessarily in war. By the same token, I think it is also useful to be clear about what we mean by war widows’ pensions There are actually two schemes. The first is the war pension scheme, a legacy compensation scheme which is paid to a surviving partner where the service person’s death or injury was caused by their service in Her Majesty’s armed forces. While that death or injury must have been caused by service, it need not have been caused by combat. The second is the armed forces pensions scheme 1975, a traditional occupational pension scheme which pays out upon the death of the service person, regardless of whether his death was caused by service Under both schemes, in broad terms the original policy was that survivors’ benefits were permanently surrendered in the event of remarriage or cohabitation. This reflected social assumptions at the time, namely that a widow or widower’s pension provided for loss of financial support from the late husband or wife; and on remarriage, financial support would be provided by the new spouse. Over the decades, however, the rules on surrendering war pensions have changed—in my view, rightly First, in 1995 a change was made to allow widows who had surrendered their right to a war pension to apply for reinstatement if they became single again. However, upon a subsequent remarriage or cohabitation, it would again be surrendered. In other words, a war widow was entitled to a war pension only if she was single. However, in April 2005 a change was made to the war pensions schemes. This allowed those who became widows before 1973, or whose husbands had left service before then and who had not remarried and were therefore entitled to a war pension at the time of the change, or at any time in the future, to keep their war pension for life. Therefore, their entitlement was not affected by any future relationship. This was targeted at pre-1973 widows, because that cohort had not benefited from the significant improvements to occupational pensions that other groups had.