Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the financial effect on widowed people of the civil service pension rules on remarriage and cohabitation.

The Government Actuary’s Department completed the quadrennial actuarial valuation as at 31 March 2016 and showed that the average annual pension for surviving adult dependants in the Civil Service pension arrangements was around £2,100 for male dependants and around £4,700 for female dependants. The pensions of widows, widowers and surviving civil partner pensions, under the Classic section of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme, cease if they remarry or cohabit. An average of around 120 pensions cease on remarriage or cohabitation per year for the period 2008 to 2019.