NHS: Pensions

(asked on 24th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential cost of backdating NHS Survivor Pension changes to include people who are unable to enter into new marriages or co-habit with a partner as a result of the pre-2008 NHS Survivor Pension rules.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 9th December 2020

There are no plans currently to review existing arrangements in these circumstances.

Making changes to pension schemes retrospectively results in improvements for members who have already retired, with costs that can only be borne by the active membership and/or taxpayers in the case of the public service schemes. Such costs are frequently large, and backdating is rarely undertaken. The most recent cost estimate, in 2013, of the cost of retrospectively removing the provision for survivor pensions to cease on remarriage was around £40 million.

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