I have not heard my right hon. Friend's point refuted, nor do I believe that it will be in this debate. The fundamental issue tonight is about settling a debt not just of gratitude but of honour to the widows of men who gave their lives for this country before the armed forces pension scheme took effect in 1973. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) said, the issue is not one that divides Conservative Members from Opposition Members. The divide is between most Members from both sides of both Houses of Parliament and the Government. A clear Majority of this House supported the early-day motion calling for equal provision for all war widows. With 350 signatories, it became the most widely supported such motion of this Parliament, and many more Members would have signed had they not been debarred from doing so by the positions they hold. To their honour, we are also backed tonight by forthright campaigning in the media as a whole. Like the vast majority of the British people, the media insist that equality of treatment for the pre-1973 war widows is now an urgent imperative.

The Leader of the House, in a speech at Blackpool in October, urged his ministerial colleagues to do more listening. I want the Ministers to whom we appeal in this debate to take his advice. Merely to listen to the plea of Britain's widows of the two world wars is to understand its poignancy. To understand is to want to help. More than 40,000 of the pre-1973 war widows are now over 70 and their problems multiply as they grow older. Many of them are chronically sick and disabled. Their claim to equal compensation for equal sacrifice is, by common consent, now unanswerable.

In one among dozens of parliamentary questions that I have tabled on their behalf in recent weeks, I asked the Secretary of State for Social Security for his Department's total expenditure at 1979 prices on war widows' pensions in each of the past 10 years. The reply on 2 November was that spending in 1978–79 was £116·7 million and that by 1988–89 it had fallen to just over £91 million. That disclosure of a £25 million fall in spending on war widows' pensions since 1978–79 means that widows of two world wars could have been paid substantially more in recent years without increasing public spending.

While public backing for the war widows' case has grown year by year, the Government's total spending on them has fallen. That recent disclosure is crucially important in this debate. Also important is the disclosure, in a further parliamentary reply, of the extent to which war widows now have to rely on means-tested benefits in trying to make ends meet. No fewer than 20 per cent. of them have to rely on housing benefit.

Between 1978 and 1988, more than 38,500 war widows died. The average annual death rate from 1985 to 1988 was 3,247, and it will rise year by year as their average age increases, thus further reducing the Government's spending on war widows' pensions. Sadly, an average of 10 war widows now die every day, taking a deep sense of injustice with them to the grave.

It is the Government's own disclosures of the number of deaths among pre-1973 war widows—I speak as the son of one of them—that call into question their estimate of the costs over future years of giving all war widows the same entitlements and the same status. They must do their sums again and also concede that settling the pre-1973 war widows' claim is not a problem of resources but one of priorities. If they make the change that we seek tonight, they will have the guarantee of summary parliamentary approval and the backing of post-1973 war widows.

Some of the most moving contributions to recent public debate on the issue have come from the widows of men who died in the Falklands or because of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Dr. Cathy Dent, whose husband died at Goose Green in the Falklands, wants equality for pre-1973 war widows. She will be remembered for the dignity that she showed when walking with her 7-year-old son at the end of this year's Albert Hall remembrance service. Her husband was a captain and her pension is more than £211 a week, including a £30 allowance for her son. Too young herself even to be the daughter of a service man killed in the second world war, she says with simple eloquence: I think the widows of those who died in the world wars have been very badly treated. Among many others, she is strongly supported by Tina Smith, whose husband was murdered just four months ago by the IRA. Tina and other post-1973 war widows were shocked and angry to learn of the striking disparity in benefits. They have given powerful backing to the impressive campaign for equal pensions for war widows mounted by the ex-service organisations under the leadership of Major General Laurie Gingell. I know that he would want me to pay tribute both to the war widows' associations and to the sustained support given to the campaign by the hon. Members for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) and for Greenwich (Mrs. Barnes) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam).

The ex-service organisations had a sensitive decision to make. Of course they want better treatment also for the disabled ex-service man, but their top priority is the urgent need for proper financial provision for the elderly war widows.

Even the Ministry of Defence must now concede that the unequal treatment of pre-1973 war widows is no longer justified. Their much lower entitlements were, for many years, justified by an insistence that the armed forces pension scheme of 1973 was an "occupational" pension scheme. Now the Ministry of Defence accepts that a pension paid under its scheme to a post-1973 widow is not an "occupational" pension but a compensatory payment, with no length of service or any contribution requirement, for loss of a service man's life and loss of quality of life for the bereaved family.

New rules adopted for the armed forces pension scheme, which became effective from June 1988, to take account of the right to opt out in favour of personal pension provision clearly state that service men who used their right to opt out still qualify for attributable death benefits and pensions for widows and children. The newly revised rules of the scheme state: Any serving member or new entrant has a right to opt out of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme and to join a personal pension scheme of his or her choice. Individuals who take this option will not be eligible for the benefits of the scheme, except that they or their dependants will remain eligible for invaliding or death benefits where the cause of injury or death is attributable to service. That change in the rules blew a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in the argument that death benefits under the 1973 scheme are those of an occupational pension scheme. They are not, or at least are not now, as the new rules make very clear, and discrimination against the pre-1973 war widows is palpably no longer defensible.

Any attempted defence now of the disparity in entitlements paid to war widows is also totally undermined by the Northern Ireland ex gratia payment scheme for the widows of men killed or who died as a result of injuries inflicted between 1 August 1969 and the coming into effect of the improved benefits of the armed forces pension scheme in 1973. The Northern Ireland scheme is still in operation and, while its benefits may not be called "pensions", they are index-linked annually and are pensions in everything but name. That scheme, too, destroys the case against equality of treatment for widows of the two world wars.

All of us here know that the older and poorer war widows do not seek retrospection in lump sum back payments; nor do they ask for parity with the war widows of Germany or Japan. All they want is equal pensions and equal status for all British war widows while they are still alive and able to benefit from more adequate provision.

That requires a positive response from the Government tonight and, in particular, an acknowledgement that it is not where or how or when a service man died that matters most in determining his widow's pension, but just the fact that he died in the service of his country.

Dame Vera Lynn said last weekend, when looking forward to this debate: If the Government say no, we will just go on until they change their mind. Like all of us, she hopes that tonight, by saying yes, the Government will bring some much-needed happiness into the lives of elderly widows whose unmerited penury and distress is of growing concern to the millions of British people now backing their plea.

I have naturally had a great many letters from elderly war widows who live all over Britain. In conclusion, I quote but one. She says: We have suffered humiliation with patience for too long. May we now see justice before it is too late?