Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Altmann on 13 July stating that the total cost of equalising survivor benefit payments would amount to £3.3 billion (HL Deb, col 343), what assessment they have made of the cost of equalising payments specifically on the grounds of sexual orientation; and whether they consider those costs to be prohibitive.

The capitalised cost of eliminating all differences in survivor benefits because of sexual orientation is estimated at £120 million, as set out in the Review of Survivor Benefits in Occupational Pension Schemes.

Although all differences because of sexual orientation in the provision of survivor benefits would be eliminated, differences because of sex would remain. This would mean that there would be differences in treatment between male same sex couples and female same sex couples. This is because male same sex couples would receive survivor benefits based on accruals from 1988 (in line with widowers of an opposite sex marriage), with female same sex couples receiving them based on accruals from 1978 (in line with widows of an opposite sex marriage).

The Government must take into account the costs and all other effects of reducing or eliminating differences before deciding on whether the law should be changed.