Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answer of 24 January 2018 to Question 123402, what estimate she has made of the (a) annual and (b) total cost to the public purse of changing the rules of the police pension scheme 1987 to provide a pension for life to survivors regardless of remarriage or cohabitation; and what estimate she has made of the cost of reinstating those pensions that have already been surrendered.

The Home Office does not hold information on the number of survivors’ pensions being paid from the 1987 police pension scheme or the number of survivors’ pensions surrendered on remarriage or cohabitation. The information is held by each Police Pension Authority.

We have estimated with the Government’s Actuary’s Department, by using historical actuarial data, that the total cost of retaining benefits for all police survivors would increase the police scheme liabilities by around £144m. It is also estimated that retaining benefits for all police survivors, including reinstatement of pensions already surrendered, would increase the police scheme liabilities to around £198m. No annual estimate is available.