Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will assess the potential merits of increasing the police pension entitlement for widows from post-retirement marriages.

The current police pension scheme provides survivor benefits regardless of the timing of a member’s marriage. In keeping with other public service pension schemes, this was not the case before 1978, when different rules applied.

Successive governments have made a general presumption against making retrospective changes to public service pension schemes. Therefore there is no entitlement relating to service before 1978 and there are no plans to change this.