Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what representations his Department has received from the War Widows' Association of Britain on war widows' pensions.

It has been the policy of successive Governments that changes or improvements to all public service pension schemes should not be applied retrospectively. Therefore there are no plans to reinstate war widows' pensions for war widows who remarried between 1973 and 2005. However from 1 April 2015 those who have already surrendered their pension due to remarriage or cohabitation can apply to have their pension restored for life should that relationship end.

The Department regularly receives representation from the War Widows Association as they are members of the Central Advisory Committee and the retention of war widows' pensions on remarriage or cohabitation is one of the issues we have engaged on in recent years.

The change, as announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 8 November 2014, which allowed widows, widowers and surviving civil partners of all members of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme and the War Pensions Scheme to retain their pensions for life came into effect from 1 April 2015. This harmonised the pension rules for Armed Forces widows with effect from the introduction of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme 2015.

War Pension Scheme records that are readily available for the period from 2005 to March 2015 show the number of war widows/ers who surrendered their War Pensions due to remarriage or cohabitation as 145.

Under Armed Forces Pension 1975 readily available information ranges between 1983 to 2015 and shows pensions surrendered by Widows/ers due to remarriage or cohabitation as 1,863.