Topical Pension Issues
Justice For Widows - Widows Pensions For Life
Let me tell you about this ruling in case you are not aware of it. It is the rule whereby the vast majority1 of Service widows have their pension taken away when they, as a result of the happiness of finding a later love, choose to cohabit or remarry. The arrangement which pertains is a bygone of former thinking and it is reprehensible. It is not enforced in full so it invites betrayal, and blackmail. It turns honourable Service widows into clandestine partners and back door visitors. Worse still, it keeps people apart disproportionately at the poorer end of the spectrum, those who can’t afford to lose their pensions, who would be a more robust social unit together. Of course there are knock-ons here to the other portfolios of government.
And the scale and cost? Well, over the last three years, the Government Actuaries tell us, on average, 15 widows are stripped of their pensions annually and the average value of those pensions is less than £3,000. An insignificant sum.
At our parliamentary lunch on 27th November 2007 our President, General Sir Roger Wheeler, launched our campaign to tackle the Widows Pension For Life Rule. (Subsequently restyled Justice For Widows). Chairman HCDC, James Arbuthnott, immediately that same day tabled a Parliamentary Question asking for details of number of pensions surrendered and saving to the defence budget. The MOD commissioned a report from the Government Actuary’s Department, which we have analysed carefully. We have had several amicable exchanges and a meeting with the Minister concerned, Kevan Jones, and he has agreed to deliberate on the setting aside of the rule.
Of course it is not as simple as the picture I paint. In theory, as opposed to prevailing practice, there is a very large number of widows potentially capable of remarrying over the next decades. If these are assumed at the very highest rate and costed to the fullest degree then there could be receipts to the public purse from sequestered widows’ pensions amounting to figures ranging from £70 Million to up to £350 Million over 40 years. At these levels the figures, if they were to come about, would represent even greater ill-treatment of this group. But whatever the theoretical costs, the actual costs are insignificant and the rules unenforceable - except in a totalitarian state. They reflect the thinking of the past, deeming a woman to be an appendage, a chattel, a relict in mediaeval terms. If not removed they remain with us for a scandalous 40 years more. The MOD will argue that the same exists in other government schemes. But only the MOD leaves its schemes unaltered for such a long time so that they get so antiquated.
I will not deal here with the subject of the death of a second husband and the means test then imposed to restore first or second husband’s pension except to say that it is an area where such means testing is still applied – to Service widows of all people, demeaning, prying and nerve wracking. We must change this – and soon.
1 Government Actuary’s words
