Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on processing War Pension Scheme and War Widow(er) Pension applications.

All of the existing 470,000 War Pensions, War Widows Pension and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments are continuing to be made as usual into nominated bank accounts, and all requests for welfare support are being met, the same day where at all possible.

With staff working remotely, it has been necessary to pause some compensation scheme administration casework on new claims, appeals and reviews. Many files, some dating back to World War II, exist only as paper records and access to office-based IT systems are needed to process this work.

Where a possibility of financial hardship is identified by the Veterans Welfare Service, a small team is in place to take action on urgent payments where the case evidence needed to do so is available.

UK Veterans staff review the situation daily in order to resume as full a level of service as possible within the current restrictions.