War Widows: Ex Gratia Pension Payment
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Harlech
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the work that the noble Baroness has done campaigning in this area. Some of the applications for the award have been rejected, and I am happy to share the statistics with the House: 72 individuals have not been accepted for a reward. However, the Ministry of Defence denies that the eligibility criteria have changed: 49 of those were already in receipt of financial reward for their bereavement; 10 are eligible for their war widow’s pension to be reinstated due to no longer being in a relationship that led to the original forfeiture; and 13 have had their initial claim rejected because of either insufficient evidence or because their partner sadly passed away from a non-service attributable death.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I too declare an interest as a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association. We were so hopeful that the war widows who had missed out would at last have their cases sympathetically solved, but following on from my noble friend’s Question, it appears that it was decided late in the day that the ex gratia payment would not be for all those who forfeited their war widow’s pension but for those who forfeited an attributable pension before 2000, which is nothing to do with the war pensions scheme. Under this new scheme, the Minister has told us how many widows have benefited; can he say, given how canny the MoD is with any money for widows, how much money it has actually paid out to date?
Lord Harlech (Con)
I understand what the noble Baroness is asking, but my mental arithmetic is not good enough to multiply the ex gratia payment amount by the number of awards paid out, so I will write to her.
War Widows’ and Widowers’ Pensions
Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Harlech
Lord Harlech (Con)
I can confirm to the noble and gallant Lord that this scheme applies to all those who surrendered their war widow’s pension before the change was made to eligibility pre April 2015. Those eligible will be those whose spouse suffered death or injury on operational deployment or in a training exercise. If it was in service, they will be eligible.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I too declare an interest as a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association. I was an RAF wife for 30 years and 24 moves. Like most wives of my generation, I was quite unable to have a career and contribute to my own pension pot. I was totally reliant on my husband’s contributions, so how cruel it was to cancel those contributions if widows, many of them very young, had the temerity to remarry. We are very grateful to the Treasury for this move, but can the Minister say how simple it will be and what advice and guidance will be offered to this dwindling band of ageing widows to enable them to access this money for the future?
Lord Harlech (Con)
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her campaigning on this issue. I agree that, looking at this issue through the prism of today, how it was administered seems a cruel decision. However, that was not a choice specific to this cohort of people; it was across all public service pensions. Through the Armed Forces covenant, the tireless campaigning of the association and Ministers such as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence, we have sought to grip this issue and have taken the action that we have this week.