Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, for what reasons any military service undertaken before the age of 18 is not counted towards veterans' overall pension value.

The only Armed Forces' pension scheme in which service before the age of 18 is not taken into account when calculating the value of the pension is the Armed Forces Pension Scheme 1975 (AFPS 75) for Regulars, which has existed in various forms since 1914, and which was closed to new entrants on 5 April 2005, on the introduction of the modernised AFPS 2005. The age requirements for the AFPS 75 scheme have been in place since at least 1940 and its pension structure is based on the 'band of brothers' principle under which all members who retire at the same rank with the same years of reckonable service receive the same pension.

The AFPS 75 rules do not specify a normal pension age, but the benefit structure assumes a pension age of 55. Reckonable service is defined as paid service after the age of 21 for Officers and 18 for Other Ranks, and the maximum which can be accrued by an Officer is 34 years, and by Other Ranks is 37 years. Under the terms of AFPS 75, Officers may retire with an immediate pension after sixteen years of service and Other Ranks may do the same after 22 years. However, the maximum (full) career pension is only payable where a member begins service at either 18 (Other Ranks) or 21 (Officers) and serves the relevant maximum years, retiring at 55.