Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps are being taken to (a) clear the backlog of unclaimed Armed Forces pensions and (b) prevent the accumulation of unclaimed pensions in future.

There is currently no backlog for unclaimed deferred pensions.

The Ministry of Defence continues to conduct tracing exercises 60 working days after the pension due date to establish the member's address and invite them to claim; we continue to explore additional mechanisms to identify individuals who qualify for an unclaimed deferred pension.