New clause 18 - Pensions for life
Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Bill
9:30 am
Mr Gerald Howarth (Aldershot, Conservative)
We are back in the territory that we visited at the outset of the Committee. I apologise to the Minister for that. He may recall that the way in which we initially tabled amendments made it difficult for me to separate out individual issues and address them in detail. There will be a certain amount of repetition and I beg your indulgence, Mr. Griffiths. It is complex territory but I will do my best to master it.
New clause 20 concerns post-retirement marriages. The widow of such a marriage currently receives either no pension if her late husband retired before 1978, or a part-pension based on her late husband's post-1978 service. In the latter case, that widow would lose even that part-pension if she were to remarry or cohabit. That is a double whammy. New clause 18 seeks to correct that inequity, but not for those who have already married as they are no longer widows.