Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Jones and Johnny Mercer(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Johnny Mercer)
Of course. The whole point of those surveys was that, when we set up the Office for Veterans’ Affairs and I came into this job, we were starting from a very poor position on data. We managed to get the question into the census to understand how many veterans we have in this country, and the ONS study that my hon. Friend mentioned increases the granularity of that data, to really understand what the challenges are for people transitioning. I am confident that the services provided now are much better than they were, but we are always looking to learn and I will look closely at the results of the survey.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Jones and Johnny Mercer(4 years ago)
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David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Johnny Mercer)
Responding to the covid-19 pandemic has been Defence’s highest strategic priority, and as part of the national response thousands of service personnel and veterans have been active in every region of the United Kingdom and devolved Administrations.
Andrew Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I think the nation has been inspired by the actions of one veteran during this pandemic, and that, of course, is Captain Sir Tom Moore, but veterans from all of our services have got so much to offer—skills in a wide variety of areas, involvement in many community groups and an approach to getting things done—so how is my hon. Friend ensuring that veterans are kept safe while they provide their invaluable support?
Johnny Mercer
As I mentioned earlier, during this period I have been acutely aware of how our needs for our veterans have changed or moved along during the pandemic. We have rolled out a series of services—the veterans trauma network; the transition, intervention and liaison service; and the complex treatment service. We are working towards that place where we can build a panoply of services so that all of our veterans are looked after in this country, in line with the Prime Minister’s intent.
Johnny Mercer
I will not take any lessons from the hon. Lady on standing up for veterans. State pensions are the responsibility of the Department for Work and Pensions, and she is well aware of that fact. This arrangement has been conducted by successive Governments for over 70 years, and questions about the policy should be directed to the Department for Work and Pensions.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
War Widows’ Pension Scheme
Debate between Andrew Jones and Johnny Mercer(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Johnny Mercer)
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who has been a source of strong counsel to me as I have worked my way through this House on the Select Committee. I congratulate him on securing this debate.
The subject of this debate was one of the first issues I looked at when I took over this role, and I have looked at it in detail. When I first came to this House, I did so with a clear mission. I mentioned at the time that I felt that the families of the bereaved had made the greatest sacrifice on the altar of this nation’s continuing freedom. I know that individuals in that position are here today, and I pay tribute to them for their sacrifice to this nation.
I think it is incumbent on Ministers to be honest about the challenges at hand. The situations that have been outlined in heart-rending detail today are clearly wrong. It was wrong to take that pension away, and in 2015 the Prime Minister reinstated it. It was corrected. This argument concerns a specific case of retrospection, and I will outline the challenges around that, fully conscious of the fact that the armed forces covenant speaks about special dispensations for the bereaved of those who have died in the service of their country.
I have a huge appreciation for our war widows. I am well aware that military partners do not have easy lives, and that they have to move around. Let me be clear about the issues at stake. War widows’ pension provision is a complex area, and it might be beneficial to the House if I clarified what we mean by some of the terms. For example, when we think of war widows, we tend to imagine we are referring to those whose husbands have died as a result of conflict. However, the term as used by the War Widows’ Association—members of which we are lucky to have joining us today—encompasses a much wider group of people who have lost their loved ones during service, and not necessarily in war. By the same token, I think it is also useful to be clear about what we mean by war widows’ pensions.
There are actually two schemes. The first is the war pension scheme, a legacy compensation scheme which is paid to a surviving partner where the service person’s death or injury was caused by their service in Her Majesty’s armed forces. While that death or injury must have been caused by service, it need not have been caused by combat. The second is the armed forces pensions scheme 1975, a traditional occupational pension scheme which pays out upon the death of the service person, regardless of whether his death was caused by service.
Under both schemes, in broad terms the original policy was that survivors’ benefits were permanently surrendered in the event of remarriage or cohabitation. This reflected social assumptions at the time, namely that a widow or widower’s pension provided for loss of financial support from the late husband or wife; and on remarriage, financial support would be provided by the new spouse. Over the decades, however, the rules on surrendering war pensions have changed—in my view, rightly.
First, in 1995 a change was made to allow widows who had surrendered their right to a war pension to apply for reinstatement if they became single again. However, upon a subsequent remarriage or cohabitation, it would again be surrendered. In other words, a war widow was entitled to a war pension only if she was single. However, in April 2005 a change was made to the war pensions schemes. This allowed those who became widows before 1973, or whose husbands had left service before then and who had not remarried and were therefore entitled to a war pension at the time of the change, or at any time in the future, to keep their war pension for life. Therefore, their entitlement was not affected by any future relationship. This was targeted at pre-1973 widows, because that cohort had not benefited from the significant improvements to occupational pensions that other groups had.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
If I may, I wish to raise the case of Mrs Gillies of Harrogate, who was widowed in 1984. If I write to the Minister with the details of her case, will he please give it some consideration?
Johnny Mercer
Of course. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will look at every single case. I am determined that we will get this right.
Ten years later, in April 2015, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, made the same pensions-for-life changes for all other widows or widowers who were, or who became, entitled to a pension from that date. We must be clear here: none of these changes reinstated war pensions that had already been foregone as a result of remarriage or cohabitation, which is what we are being urged to do today by the War Widows’ Association. These changes were forward looking, with no retrospective effect, meaning that if a widow was, or became, entitled to a pension in April 2015, it was a pension for life and we would never take it away.
The War Widows’ Association has argued that the changes created an anomaly, because a group of people —whose number, the War Widows’ Association claims, is in the hundreds—have not benefited from them. These are widows whose remarriage, civil partnership or cohabitation occurred before the rule changes and whose relationship remains intact. As that group of war widows have not had an entitlement to reinstate their war pensions, they have not benefited from the pensions-for-life changes.
I am certainly well aware of their concerns. One of the first things I did on becoming a Minister was meet the War Widows’ Association. The Ministry of Defence regularly receives representation from the War Widows’ Association, which is a member of the central advisory committee on compensation. Indeed, I have discussed these issues with war widow representatives recently.
I will end by referring to the statement released by the War Widows’ Association after David Cameron’s announcement in 2015. It specifically said and accepted at the time that new legislation never has a retrospective effect, and that the change would apply only to those who were receiving the pension when the new legislation came into force that April.