Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the continued difference in survivor pension entitlements between the Police Pension Scheme 1987 and the 2006 and 2015 Police Pension Schemes in relation to remarriage and cohabitation.

Serving police officers have access to the 2015 police pension scheme, which provides life-long survivor benefits for spouses, civil partners and unmarried partners, including those who remarry or cohabit after losing a spouse. All eligible police officers have had an opportunity to join a pension scheme with life-long survivor benefits, since the introduction of the 2006 police pension scheme.

For officers who joined policing prior to 2006, the 1987 police pension scheme provides a pension for the widow, widower or civil partner of a police officer who dies. In common with most other public service pension schemes of that time, these benefits cease to be payable where the widow, widower or civil partner remarries or cohabits with another partner.

The 1987 scheme was not costed to provide these extended benefits, and retrospectively changing the scheme would create significant additional costs for current officers and taxpayers. The 1987 police pension scheme is now a closed scheme, superseded by the 2015 scheme, and there are no plans to make further improvements to the benefits accrued under it.