Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, for what reasons his Department allows for differences in member pension contribution rates but not member pension benefits in calculating the net pay deduction from the salaries of Ministry of Defence fire fighters and fire officers.

Ministry of Defence (MOD) Fire-fighters and Fire Officers are not eligible to join the Local Authority (LA) Fire Pension Schemes (FPS) and instead are members of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS). LA Fire-fighters had a contributory pension scheme whereas until 2012 the PCSPS was non-contributory - except for a 1.5% contribution for the widows and orphans scheme. An abatement was therefore applied to the salaries of MOD Fire-fighters and Fire Officers as a fair and consistent method of bringing 'take home' pay into line with their outside comparators in the LA Fire Rescue Service.

The abatement has no relationship with pension entitlement and was negotiated with the appropriate Trade Unions at the time. This arrangement remains in place today although the abatement level has changed over the intervening years to take account of changes to pension contributions introduced in the LA FPS. Changes have also been made for Fire-fighters to take account of Public Sector Pension reform changes introduced from 2012 which have seen increases to the rate of contributions made by public servants (including PCSPS members) to their pension. In 2015 the MOD commissioned the Government Actuary's Department (GAD) to review the level of the Fire Officer NPD and is currently negotiating with the Trades Union on the findings of the 2016 GAD report as part of the review.