Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Minister for Defence Personnel and Veterans' letter to the hon. Member for Leeds North West of 4 June 2015, whether his Department estimated the cost of reinstating pensions for widows of armed forces personnel who remarried between 1973 and 2005 prior to the Government's decision on such pensions.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 15 July 2015 to Questions 6509, 6522 and 6523 about war widows' pensions. The Government has a longstanding policy that changes or improvements to all public service pension schemes should not be applied retrospectively. The cost of reinstating war widows' pensions for those who remarried between 1973 and 2005 was not estimated.

The change to the War Pensions Scheme means that from 1 April 2015 those who surrendered their pensions from that date or after due to remarriage or cohabitation can retain their widow(er)'s pension for life.